One Good Reason
by CoyoteLoon
Summary: Jenny's finally had it with saving the world; why should she ruin her life to save people who are completely ungrateful? But she's forced to rethink things when the Cluster stages a devious attack. (complete)
1. One of Those Days

Disclaimer – All characters are from the cartoon "My Life as a Teenage Robot" and are property of Rob Renzetti, and the good people at Frederator Studios.  My sole creation is the character of Drew, a human high school student who was accidentally turned into an android by Cluster nanotechnology.  Now friends with Jenny and Brad, his nanobot body has shape shifting (and other bizarre) properties.  It's explained in my stories, starting with "Android Scam".

To everyone who has ever left a review: you rock, you rock in stereo, you rock in Dolby surround sound.  Thanks for reading, and for providing the motivation and encouragement for me to keep writing.  I rated this story PG simply to err on the side of caution; it will be a bit more serious than the last one.  It might turn into another 30K word story.  Hopefully, I can make it worth your time.  Okay, here we go.

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ONE GOOD REASON

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter One – One of Those Days

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Jenny punched through the low layer of clouds, roaring out of the sky on the twin flames of her pigtail-jets.  Hurtling towards the ground at breakneck speed, she pulled out of her dive at the last moment, leveling off a mere ten feet above the sidewalk.  Pedestrians below barely had time to notice a blue-and-white streak sailing over their heads before being buffeted by the swirling gusts in her wake.  She didn't have an extra second to spare tonight.  One more turn, a hard, ninety-degree bank to the right, and her objective was finally in sight.

The bright marquee of the Rialto Theater shone with patterns of yellow, orange, and purple, bathing the faces of the people below in humming neon light.  There were well over three hundred people in line, impatiently waiting to buy their tickets for the Hollywood blockbuster event of the season, _Lord of the Armbands_.  She barely slowed down as she curled out of the air, and flew directly towards the old-style revolving brass door that served as the main entrance to the Rialto.

But she was in too much of a hurry, and quickly spun the door up to a speed normally associated with jet turbines.  "_Whooooooa!!!_" she cried, trying to regain control of herself.  The six people stuck in the door with her collectively groaned in agony, as if trapped on some berserk carnival ride.  Finally, the centrifugal force spat them inside the theater.  People surrounding the doors tumbled like dominoes, and Jenny slid gracelessly into the lobby, ripping and scraping the thick red carpeting with her metallic bottom.

She came to a stop, and wearily looked up at a circle of scolding faces – including a little fellow with black hair, slurping on a giant soda cup.  "Well, it was awfully nice of you to decide to show up," Tuck huffed, tapping his foot.

Brad leaned over his little brother, hands in his pockets, with his trademark easy-going smile.  "Hey there, Jen.  Spectacular entrance.  You lost a few points on the dismount, though."

"Hey guys," she moaned, as she climbed back up to her feet.  _I guess they've been waiting for me for a while._  "Ahhh … sorry about that.  I was trying to rush here as fast as I could.  Train derailment on the other side of town.  Just finished saving the passengers – and all their _luggage_.  Do you have the tickets?"

"We are good to go," he said, handing her a movie ticket.  "Drew is in charge of refreshments.  Status report, refreshment boy?"

Drew walked over from the snack counter, carrying a foam tray loaded with goodies.  "We got yer popcorn, Twizzlers, Mini Mints, Juju Beans, and two foot-long hot dogs with everything.  And for us robot folk – a can of engine coolant for the lady, and a sack of nickel-plated hex nuts for yours truly.  By the way, Jenny, I have this amazing piece of hi-tech equipment inside my body that comes in _so_ handy.  It's called a _clock_.  Maybe your mom can hook you up with one."

"Very funny," Jenny shot back, grabbing the coolant.  "I know I'm late, guys – I'm sorry!  I just finished my evening patrol.  It's been crazy today."  Something seemed different; he didn't have his usual silver-green appearance.  _Oh, right – the shapeshift thing_.  "Going with the natural look tonight, hmmm?"

Drew was mimicking his old human form for the evening: blond hair, oversize baseball shirt, and baggy jeans.  "Yeah, figured it wouldn't be too hard to hold onto the old look for a couple of hours.  It'll make for a lot less pointing and staring."

"Gee, nice for _you_," she sighed, with a hint of sarcasm - her mother hadn't been putting much effort into Exo-Skin version 3.0.  And as usual, there was plenty of pointing and staring _at her_.  "Has the movie started yet?"

"It started five minutes ago, but don't sweat it," said Brad.  "They'll run fifteen minutes of ads and trailers first.  But we're probably going to get stuck sitting way up front."

"All the better to see the special effects during the battle scenes with the giant elephants!  That's gonna be so cool," grinned Tuck, before ramming another handful of popcorn into his mouth.  "Sore neck muscles are a small price to pay for total sensory immersion!"

"Let's get going, then," said Jenny.  "The sooner I'm sitting down, the better."

The four of them made their way inside the theater, and just as Brad had feared (and Tuck had hoped), the only seats available were close to the giant screen.  They snuck down and found four empty seats in the middle of the third row.  Irritated movie-goers who had just gotten comfortable stood up to let them slide across, grumbling at them for the inconvenience.  Jenny collapsed into her seat, and tried to sink back as low as her six-and-a-half foot frame would let her.  She was looking forward to being in a comfortable chair for two hours.

Brad choked down half a hot dog, and pestered Tuck for a drink from his giant tub of soda, which he didn't feel like sharing.  A typical brotherly argument grew into a good-natured popcorn fight, even while the upcoming releases played on the giant screen.  Suddenly, a hand reached forward from the seats behind them, and tapped Brad on the shoulder.

"Can you quiet it down up there?" whispered a large, annoyed man.  "We're trying to watch!"

"Heh-heh, sorry about that," said Brad.  "We'll knock it off.  Didn't mean to …"

"Not you," the man hissed.  "_Her_."  He was pointing towards Jenny.

Only then did Brad realize that Jenny's head was slumped back over her seat, her eyes were closed, and she was _snoring_.  Her pigtails had flipped backwards, and were resting limply in a tub of nacho cheese sauce on the large man's lap.

"Jenny!  Wake up!"  Brad shook her by the shoulders, and she snapped to alertness.

"Wha?  Who?  Knock it off!  I'm awake," she stammered.

"Sh-yeah … you were totally sawing logs there, Jen."

"_Ewww!_"  She grimaced with disgust as cheese sauce dripped from the tips of her pigtails.  "I guess I am feeling a little run down … I haven't gotten much sleep-mode time this week.  There was that forest fire in Canada last night, and the dam break in India the night before that …"

Drew lobbed a hex nut into the air, catching it in his mouth.  "So take a day off," he said, as his nanobots dissolved the metallic treat.

She gave him a downtrodden glare.  "Yeah, right.  Hel-lo?  You _have_ met my mother, right?  There's no such thing as a day off."

"Geez, Jen," said Brad, with a touch of concern in his voice.  "Maybe you should just skip the movie, and go home to get some rest."

"No, no, that's okay."  She sat upright and wiggled back and forth in her seat to get comfortable, as the trailers finally came to an end.  "Everyone at school has been talking about this movie since last fall, it's been in all the papers, and all over TV.  I've been looking forward to it all week.  And I've been looking forward to seeing Ian McCulley play the handsome Elf Prince," she giggled.  "I'm not going to let a little thing like being tired spoil it for me now."

The lights dimmed, and the lush, rolling green hills of Medium Earth filled the giant screen.  The camera seemed to be flying through a fantastic valley of tall trees and beautiful waterfalls.  The dramatic theme music of the motion picture epic started to flow over the dozens of speakers, filling the theater with haunting, soul-stirring music …

That was pierced by a shrill _beep-beep-beep_ from her belly-bolt.  _Oh, no._

The row behind Jenny started to _shush_ her.  "Come on, lady, turn your phone off!"

_You don't know how much I wish I could_.  Her pigtails sank as her chest plate snapped open, and the all-too-familiar viewscreen unfolded into place.  The monitor lit up with the distraught face of her mother, waving her arms in an agitated fashion.  "XJ-9!  You must get downtown immediately!  A fire has broken out at City Hall!"

"Shhhh!  Quiet!" hissed the crowd.  A few kernels of popcorn came from somewhere, and bounced off the back of her head.  She glanced behind her, trying to give the crowd her best _there's-nothing-I-can-do-about-it_ face, only to get bombarded with another volley of popcorn.

The boys cringed in sympathy, as Jenny pleaded with her mother.  "_Auuuughhh_ … Mom!  The movie's just starting!  Can't the fire department handle this?  I've been flying around like a maniac all day!"

"The fire engines are stuck in rush hour traffic.  And this is _not_ a negotiation!"  Her mother grew cross, and wagged a finger at her.  "Your fun time comes _after_ your responsibilities.  You have a job to do, young lady!  Now, hurry along!"

"Yes, ma'am," she moped.  The viewscreen – _that miserable viewscreen_ – folded up and retracted into her chest.  She looked at Brad with crushingly sad eyes.  "I've gotta go, guys."

Brad tried to find a way to salvage the situation.  "Look Jen," he whispered, "maybe it won't take that long, and after you're done with the fire, you can come back.  We'll save your seat for you."

"Thanks, Brad.  I'm sure gonna try."  The boys shielded themselves as she configured herself for flight mode with the _whirr_ of motors and the _whine_ of engines.  With a cloud of pale blue exhaust and blinding speed, she blasted out of her seat and streaked through one of the skylights in the theater's high ceiling.  Tuck was preoccupied with an ogre battle on the movie screen, and didn't seem to notice the little drama.  But Brad and Drew knew how much Jenny had been looking forward to the movie, and they exchanged a downcast look, shaking their heads.

Jenny soared hundreds of feet above the rooftops, her cheeks burning red with anger and frustration, and let out a scream that rattled windows for city blocks in every direction.  She almost wished that the emergency had been an alien attack, instead of a stupid old fire – she felt like blasting _something_ with a laser right now.  She quickly scanned the Tremorton skyline, looking for the latest crisis.  The billowing column of thick black smoke was impossible to miss.  She headed off for the smoke column at high speed.

"I don't believe it!  Is two lousy hours to enjoy a movie too much to ask?  AUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!  Life is so _unfair_!"

The whole day had been one series of crises after another, each one timed more inconveniently than the last.  The Alaskan avalanche on the way to school.  The jumbo jet emergency landing in Germany during P.E. class.  And the mudslide in Argentina at lunch hour – not only did she miss lunch, but she was cleaning mud off of her body all afternoon long, much to the amusement of Brit and Tiff.

"You have a job to do, young lady," she sneered, mocking her mother's voice.  "Funny, I don't remember _applying_ for that job.  Well … I might as well get down to business."

Below her, she saw the snarled evening traffic that her mother had told her about.  Sure enough, trapped on a side street in the middle of four solid lanes of cars , she could see the flashing red lights of a hook and ladder truck from the Tremorton Fire Department.  Suddenly she got an idea – _hey, this'll go a lot faster if I bring along a little help!_

Jenny swooped down to street level, and landed in the middle of the clogged traffic.  She waved to the driver of the fire engine to get his attention – then the driver turned and shouted to the members of his team to _hold on tight_.  The huge red fire truck lurched slightly from side to side, as Jenny lifted the massive vehicle over her head, then leapt into the sky on pillars of white-hot flame from her pigtails and feet.  Evening commuters and pedestrians stared into the sky with astonishment at the spectacle of a flying fire engine, soaring over downtown Tremorton.

Even with the dark smoke roiling from the windows, Tremorton City Hall was still instantly identifiable by its tall, majestic columns and domed rotunda.  Jenny gently dropped towards the street, looking for a fire hydrant.  Unfortunately, the hydrant in front of the building, where the fire was at its worst, was blocked by a row of cars, illegally parked.

"Some people are so inconsiderate," she grumbled.  Still holding the massive fire engine over her head, she kicked a pair of sedans away from the hydrant to make room.  With a spot cleared, she sat the hook and ladder truck down on its own tires once more, and waved to the driver.  The firemen jumped off and started unraveling their hoses.

She paused briefly to dust her hands off.  "All right – another crisis averted!  And that didn't take long at all.  I can be back at the movies in a minute or two …"

As the firemen opened up their hoses on the front of City Hall, a row of windows on the back of the building exploded, showering the sidewalk below with broken glass, and sending a new plume of smoke skyward.  Jenny overheard the fire chief scream into the truck's radio.  "We're at City Hall, but the flames are spreading!  We can't get to the back of the building!"

Her shoulders sunk.  _So much for getting this over with in a hurry._

Jenny flew around to the back of City Hall, and spotted another hydrant.  She hooked herself up to it, turning her left arm into an extendable hose, and flew about fifty feet into the air.  Most of the flames were coming from the upper windows, so that's where the water was needed most.  Jenny lifted her legs, and after a series of _whirrs_ and _clanks_, her lower body had converted into a water cannon.  She took aim at the worst of the fire, and a blasted a powerful jet of water into the building.

She panned the nozzle back and forth, flying closer to the inferno than any human fireman safely could.  Her water cannon made fantastic progress attacking the fire; in just a few minutes, the flames and heat began to diminish.  Between herself and the fire department, the fires were coming under control, and soon would be extinguished completely.  _A few more minutes of this, and there won't be enough left to toast a marshmallow.  Okay, I've only missed the first half hour – I can still see Ian McCulley's big scene._

A hoarse voice shouted out from somewhere on the top floor of City Hall.  "HELP!"

"There are people trapped in there?!?"  She rolled her eyes.  "Of _course_ there are."

Easing her way through an open window, she let her arm-hose continue to extend, and converted her legs back to normal.  A smaller nozzle deployed from her right hand, and she started making her way through the darkness, fighting smaller fires as she went.  It was a mess of dust and smoke inside City Hall, and it was difficult to see anything, even with her infrared mode selected.  But her sensors did confirm that there were six people on this floor: all healthy, but still in danger.

She ran down a dark, smoky corridor towards the readings on her scope, until she could hear the sound of people coughing and sputtering.  They were coming from behind a thick office door, engulfed in roaring flames.  Jenny attacked the fire with a blast of water, and broke down the door.

She sprayed the entire room with water, fighting back the inferno.  Then she retracted her nozzle, and deployed a large pair of propeller blades from her pigtails.  They spun up to a terrific speed, clearing away the smoke and soot, and extinguishing the remaining fires.  As the smoke dissipated, she smiled to see the six city workers huddled on the floor, disoriented and soaking wet, but apparently all right.

_Another six innocent lives successfully saved_, she beamed to herself, while her hose-arm reeled back into her shoulder.  "Attention, everyone!  Just hang tight, and I'll have you out of here in a minute!"

She scooped up the survivors, three in each arm, and blasted the office window open with a pair of laser bolts from her pigtails.  They leapt through the window, and slowly descended to the sidewalk below, landing softly on a cushion of rocket exhaust.  By now, the area around City Hall had been blocked off by the police, more fire trucks had shown up, and three ambulances were standing by.  Paramedics rushed over to wrap blankets around the workers, who were still coughing and spitting water from their lungs.

Jenny frowned as she wiped at the grimy layer of moist soot that covered her body, looking back towards City Hall.  The column of dark smoke had all but disappeared, and the fireman were starting to turn off a few of their hoses.  "Well, it looks like things are under control here," she sighed.  "But I am in serious need of a wash and wax.  I can't go back to the theater looking like this …"  She planted her hands on her hips, wondering if she should try to clean up or simply call it a night.

"Her!  She's the one!" shouted one of the survivors, shivering in his blanket.  He pointed a shaking finger at Jenny.  "She's the one responsible!"

Jenny proudly folded her arms across her chest.  "That's right, sir.  But don't worry, it's no big deal.  I was just doing my job."

"Your _job_?" he shouted back.  "Are you joking, you robotic maniac?  You almost drowned me!"

She nearly keeled over backwards from shock.  "_Robotic maniac?!?_  What are you talking about?  I just saved your life!"

Another fire victim joined in, hands clutched over her chest, tears streaming from her eyes.  "That's right, she's the one!  We thought it was the firemen, but that mechanical beast stormed in and nearly blew us away with her horrible giant propellers!  I'm going to be emotionally scarred for life!"

"I'm pretty sure she gave me an electrical shock," added a third.  "I could have nerve damage!"

Jenny was speechless with disbelief.  She had just saved these peoples' lives, by risking her own … not to mention ruining her movie night!  But to her relief, one of the fire victims stepped forward with an open hand and a friendly face.

"Well, I for one would like to shake the hand of the robot girl who saved my life," he smiled.  "I thought you were very brave, miss, and I'd just like to say …"

His friendly smile mutated into a horrified scream.  "MY CAR!  What did you do to my car!?!  Oh, just look at it!  I just made the final payment on it last month!"

Jenny cringed, and turned to look at the beige sedan, sitting overturned on the front lawn of City Hall – one of the cars she had kicked out of the way to make room for the fire engine.  "That was _your_ car?  But it was right next to the hydrant!  It's illegal to park there!"

"Then write me a _parking ticket_!" he screamed, in hysterics.  "You deliberately destroyed my car!  You're going to hear from my lawyer about this!"

Her oil started to boil over with anger, but she managed to bite her tongue.  So far this evening, she'd had to leave her friends, miss the biggest movie of the year, carry a twenty ton fire truck, and fly around inside a building filled with fire and filth.  She'd put out the fire, and saved six lives.  And her reward for all that effort was angry insults.  Her hands squeezed into fists of rage, and she could feel sparks of electricity leaping from her cheeks.  _Sometimes, I wonder why I even bother._  She ignited her pigtail-jets and shot into the sky, mad at the people below, mad at the firemen for getting stuck in traffic, mad at the world.  _Maybe everything will seem better after eight hours of sleep mode.  This day can't end soon enough for me._

* * *

Continued in Chapter Two

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	2. Tortured Souls

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One Good Reason

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Two – Tortured Souls

* * *

Drew stretched out in his booth, cracked his knuckles, and pushed his unkempt blonde hair away from his eyes.  He was looking forward to doing absolutely nothing for a few hours.  Mezmer's was jam-packed with the after-school crowd, just hanging out and listening to the tunes on the jukebox, enjoying life the way it was meant to be.  He'd already forgotten whatever it was they'd talked about at school today.  He wasn't terribly concerned about getting home anytime soon.  All he cared about right now was sinking his teeth into a crispy, greasy, sizzling order of five-alarm nachos.

The waitress zipped over on her roller skates, and theatrically presented the giant platter of nacho chips, smothered in five kinds of cheese, beef chili, salsa, sour cream and jalapeno peppers.  It was truly a thing a beauty.  Drew lifted up a fistful of drippy, gooey, nacho perfection to his trembling lips.  He didn't rush the first bite.  _You never rush the first bite.  You crunch slowly, deliberately, letting every new flavor explode in your mouth, building into a brain rush of gastronomical nirvana._  He closed his eyes and tuned out the rest of the world, just focusing on the exquisite taste …

Something was wrong.

It wasn't that the nachos tasted bad.  It was that they tasted … _like nothing_.  He chewed a few more times, and still there was no taste.  Uneasily, he grabbed another handful of chips and stuffed them in his mouth.  _Nothing._  But why?

Brad grabbed a few nachos from the pile and started munching away.  His face twisted into comical expressions of pure joy.  "Mmmm … _mmm-mmm_.  Oh, wow, these sure are delicious, aren't they?"

"I … I don't know," stammered Drew, growing nervous.  "I can't taste them for some reason."

"Huh!  They taste fine to me," said Brad.  Then he snapped his fingers and smiled.  "Oh, that's right!  I know why you can't taste them."  He picked a fork up off the table, and casually wiped it off with the fabric of his shirt tail, until it had a nice, clean shine.

Then he lunged across the table and stabbed the fork into Drew's chest.

As stunned as Drew was, he was even more amazed to see the fork actually _liquefy_ into a shiny silver blob, sitting on his chest.  Then the blob started to expand.  In a frenzy, he rubbed at his chest, trying to wipe away the layer of ooze that was slowly enveloping his body.  It spread up to his shoulders and along his arms.  It spread down his legs and wrapped around his feet.  He felt the silver ooze flow over his neck and cheeks, over his lips and teeth, into his eyeballs and nostrils.  He watched in terror as thin, crooked green stripes faded into existence all over his body.  And all around the restaurant, every pair of eyes was staring at him, repulsed by the freakish spectacle they were witnessing.  Hundreds of eyes.  Thousands of eyes.  All gaping wide in horror and disgust.

Brad laughed at him.  "You can't taste them because you're an inhuman _freak _that shouldn't even exist."

"Cripes, just look at you," said Jenny, shaking her head.  "You may not be human, but you're really not much of a robot either, are you?  I mean, what are you good for – besides grossing people out, that is?"

"Tell me about it," said Brad, sticking his tongue out.  "_Yechhh_.  That giant pile of silver puke is enough to ruin anybody's appetite."

Drew shrunk into his seat, withering under their words.  "Guys … don't say stuff like that!  Please – you're the only two friends I have in the whole world!"

"Excuse me?  _Friends?_  We just let you hang around because we feel sorry for you," sneered Jenny.  "Now why don't you just stay here and loaf around – it's not like anybody's going to miss you.  Some of us robots actually do something _meaningful_ with our lives.  In fact, I have to go save the world right now."  She stood up to leave the booth, rotating her pigtails to flight mode …

"No … don't leave me all alone like this!" cried Drew, as he grabbed Jenny by the arm.

"Don't worry, dear, you're not alone," echoed a menacing female voice.

He didn't know whose voice it was, but it seemed chillingly familiar to him somehow.  Drew looked around wildly, searching for the speaker, but didn't see anybody.  The voice seemed to come from all around him, and from inside his head, all at the same time.

"You're one of us now – a _robot_, just like us.  We made you.  We _own_ you.  You belong to _me_."  The voice purred with an arrogant confidence; a voice accustomed to giving commands, and having them obeyed without question.  "You know what you have to do."

His grip on Jenny's wrist grew tighter.  Thin strings of silver-green ooze flowed from his hand, and snaked their way up to her elbow.  She struggled to pull herself free from the silvery molasses.  "Drew!  Stop it!  Oh my gosh … what are you doing?"

The silver ooze crept up to her shoulder, and started to spread across her entire robotic body.  Jenny's arm started to lose its solid form, gurgling and burping as the nanobots devoured her.  Drew just stared into her pleading face, horrified, and unable to stop himself.  "Jenny, I'm sorry … oh God, I'm so sorry …"

Brad grabbed Jenny's arm, and desperately tried to pull her away – but a new strand of ooze shot out of Drew's torso, and started to envelop Brad as well.  Drew shivered in terror as a third, then a fourth, then dozens of silver tentacles sprang from his body.  They wrapped around the panicking customers, and punched into the walls of Mezmer's itself.  He could _feel_ the nanobots dissolving everything down into sludge.  Drew watched Jenny shriek one last time, and then she collapsed into a thick silver puddle.  Brad was the next to dissolve.  The floor and the walls started to drip with silver-green ooze.  All of it flowed into his body, which grew into a monstrous blob of metallic slime.  People screamed with dread and pounded on the doors and windows, trying to escape, but Drew kept growing, until he had absorbed everyone and everything inside the restaurant.

But that was only the beginning.  There was still an entire city for him to consume.  There was an entire _world_.  The front doors melted away, and a wave of silver death roared out to engulf the planet …

And spilled onto the bedroom floor, splattered against the dresser, and knocked over a stack of _Sporting Illustrated_ magazines.  The wild sloshing motion sent the large metal tub – which Drew used for a bed – crashing against the wall, with an ear-splitting _clang_ that reverberated through the entire house.

"Andrew?  Andrew, are you all right up there, sweetie?" yelled a voice from downstairs.

The metallic puddle bubbled chaotically on the floor for a few seconds, shooting thin tendrils of silver licorice wildly into the air.  Then it stopped, and started to warble with rippling waves of silver-green.  The syrupy mass gathered itself together into a more solid form, and sprouted arms, legs, and finally a head … a head with a tortured, tired face.

"I'm okay, Mom," he shouted, "just … just getting up."  He slowly pulled himself to his feet and rubbed his head, trying to get his bearings.  He tried to reassure himself that it had all been just a dream.  _Just the one where I lose control of my body, kill my friends, and turn into an instrument of Armageddon.  You know, typical stuff._  He hadn't told anyone about his nightmares, least of all his mother; there didn't seem to be much point in giving her yet another reason to freak out.

"I heard a crash up there.  Is everything all right?"

_Sure!  I've got voices in my head.  Everything's peachy!_  "Just a little clumsy this morning, Mom.  I'll be down in a few minutes."  He'd had the odd nightmare now and then, but the last three nights had been miserable.  And that voice … he'd never heard that voice before this week, yet he had the most bizarre feeling that it was somebody he knew.  Somebody who played a part in his transformation from a human into an android.  Somebody important.  Somebody dangerous.

* * *

_It can't be six o'clock already.  My internal systems haven't finished their nightly maintenance_.  But that was to be expected, since it had only been about three hours since she'd gotten back from that suspension bridge accident in China.  Jenny swung her legs out of bed, slowly creaked her way over to her vanity, and plunked herself down in the chair.  With a mighty effort, she managed to ratchet one eyelid open.  The robot staring back at her in the mirror was _not_ a pretty sight.

"_Groan_ … I've got rust under the eyes.  _Ohhhh_, that's going to corrode if I don't do something about it."  She fumbled for her bottle of rust remover, dabbed some on her cheeks, and extended a polishing tool from her right hand.  The high-pitched whine of the polisher was especially unnerving this morning, and Jenny was relieved to finally turn it off.  But after it retracted back into her arm, she noticed another noise coming from outside her window.  The sound of voices, shouting in anger.

Jenny staggered over to the window, looked outside – and couldn't believe her eyes.

A crowd of people – there had to be over sixty – was gathered on the front lawn, waving homemade signs and chanting slogans, shaking their fists in the air.  There were men and women of all ages, some college students and teenagers, and even some children.  She recognized a couple of faces from the fire at City Hall the previous night.  _I've seen things like this before …  this ... this is a protest.  Right here on my front yard_.  On top of that, four TV news vans were parked on either side of the street, clogging traffic and drawing attention from the neighbors.  TV news reporters deployed themselves around the protesters, filming the entire spectacle.  A chant started up for the TV cameras –

"Hey hey, ho ho, the robot thug has got to go!  Hey hey, ho ho, the robot thug has got to go!  Hey hey …"

Jenny braced herself against the window sill.  "Why … why are they saying that? … I'm not a thug … why are they all mad at me?"

Then she realized something awful.  _If this is on TV, then all the kids from school are going to see this!_  She dashed over to a small television hanging from the ceiling, and turned it to one of the local channels.  To her horror, the morning news program was showing a live shot of the outside of her house – and her mother, on the front walkway, shaking her fist at the cameras!

"Merciful heavens!" her mother shouted out of the TV screen.  "Watch where you're stepping, you!  I just planted those begonias last week!"  The graphic at the bottom of the screen read _Dr. Nora Wakeman – local crackpot inventor_.

Reporters hurled a barrage of questions at her.  "Dr. Wakeman!  Dr. Wakeman, how do you respond to charges that your rogue experimental robot is endangering the town?"  "Dr. Wakeman!  Critics say that the XJ-9 robot is causing more damage than it actually prevents!  Your comments?"

"I am simply out here to collect my morning newspaper," she huffed.  "Now, shoo!  This is private property.  Off you go!"  She waved away the reporters, to absolutely no effect.  The media swarm pressed in closer, jamming lenses and microphones towards her face.

"Wakeman, you wacko!" shouted a large, loud man in the crowd, holding a protest sign that read _Humans First, Robots Worst_.  "Your robotic contraption is a menace to us all!"

"Balderdash," responded her mother, unfazed by the mob.  "Now I do not have time to banter with the likes of you.  It's time for XJ-9 to get her pumps flushed, and have her morning lube."  With that, she walked back in the house and closed the door.

Jenny clasped her hands to her mouth.  "AUUUUUGHHH!!!  I can't believe she just said that on live TV!  The kids are going to name me Dork of the Year!"  She dove back on the bed and buried her head underneath the pillows, wishing that she could just make the entire world go away.  But the TV news was still on, and the morning anchorman joined in to talk to the on-the-spot reporter.

"Cynthia, this is Neil in the studio … it looks like Dr. Wakeman wasn't in the mood to answer questions this morning.  Have you been able to speak to any of the people in the crowd?"

"Yes I have, Neil.  The protest organizer, Morton Snidely, is the owner of a downtown Tremorton restaurant that suffered massive damage a few months ago, when the XJ-9 robot crashed through his front window during a 'reckless melee' with a giant mechanical spider.  He says that everyone in the crowd this morning has incurred property damage as a result of the Wakeman robot's so-called 'battle against evil', and that legal action …"

_Click._  The TV went silent, as Mrs. Wakeman turned the knob.  Jenny hadn't even heard her come in.

"I believe that is enough uninformed claptrap for one day," she said, as she walked towards the diagnostics unit.  "Honestly, the nerve of that loudmouthed ruffian.  Someone who cannot be bothered to use proper grammar on their protest sign cannot _possibly_ be taken seriously.  All right then, XJ-9, let's just run your morning systems check before … goodness gracious, are you still in bed, young lady?"

"Yes, and I'm staying here all day," she shouted, the pillows muffling her voice.

"Don't be so silly," said Mrs. Wakeman, as she snatched the pillows away from Jenny's head.  "Now be a good robot and sit up straight, so I can check the lubricant on your gaskets."

"Great, why don't you just announce _that_ to the world, too?"

"What is the _matter_ with you, XJ-9?!?"  Mrs. Wakeman planted her hands on her hips.  "Stop behaving so immaturely!  Now, the sooner we check your lubricant, the sooner we …"

Jenny snapped upright, her eyes on the brink of tears.  "What's the _matter_!?!  I've been flying around the world for the past three days nonstop, I don't get to have any time with my friends anymore, you just made a me look like a fool to everybody in town, and those people … those people outside think that I'm some kind of a _monster_!  And you ask what's the matter?!?  I can't take any more of this, Mom!"

"Oh, of course you can, dear," Mrs. Wakeman smiled, patting her on the hand.  "After all, this is what I designed you for.  Now, don't give a second thought to that bit of unpleasantness outside.  I'm certain that this will all blow over in no time at …"

Mrs. Wakeman was interrupted by a shrill, buzzing alarm.

Jenny stared at the flashing red light on one of her ceiling monitors.  _Another emergency._  Her pigtails drooped, and she turned away.

Her mother dashed over to the monitor.  "Oh my … there's a tidal wave approaching Sydney, Australia!  Wave height is reading as eighty feet … traveling at two hundred miles per hour.  Estimated time of impact, fifteen minutes.  That's very odd, the seismographs didn't pick up any earthquake activity … well, no matter.  This should be a routine mission for you, XJ-9."

Jenny sat silently on the bed, staring at the floor.

"XJ-9, is your auditory system malfunctioning?  In fifteen minutes, Down Under is going to be Down Underwater.  Now get going!"

Jenny turned to her mother, with a stern face.  "No."

Mrs. Wakeman returned her daughter's stare for a few seconds.  This wasn't the first time they had argued about a mission, not by a long shot.  But she sensed something different in XJ-9's attitude this time; something told her that trouble was brewing.  "Now XJ-9, I understand that you're a little tired, but …"

"Understand?  How can you understand?" shouted Jenny.  "You just stay here in the house, sitting in your chair down in the lab, while you send me out to run your little errands all around the world.  If you really understood, then you'd know that I'm sick and tired flying around to every earthquake and volcano and killer bee swarm.  I'm sick and tired of it!"

"XJ-9," she answered, taking a deep, measured breath, "you do not 'run errands'.  You protect the Earth.  That is a very important responsibility, and it is what you were made for!"

"Well I never _wanted_ that responsibility.  I never _asked_ to be assembled.  Did you ever think of that?  No, of course not.  All you ever do is give me instructions, like I was some kind of punch-card computer.  Maybe that's all you think of me as!  Something else to _program_, like a microwave with legs."

"I do _not_ care for that tone of voice, young lady.  You are being foolish and selfish."  Mrs. Wakeman gestured to the monitor.  "Thousands, maybe millions of peoples' lives are depending on you right now."

"So I fly there and save them.  And then what?"  Jenny was starting to get red-faced, and tears were welling up in her eyes.  "Will they just holler at me and curse me like those people out on the lawn?  Or call me a menace to society like the people on the news?  Why should I keep risking my life to save the Earth?  Can you give me one good reason why I should?"

"I will give you the only reason you need," shouted her mother.  "Because _I said so!_"

"Oh, sure.  Order your machine around.  That's always your answer.  You know what?  The last time I went to stop a tidal wave, it fizzled out before it even got close to shore.  I flew halfway around the world, and the only thing in danger was some kid's sand castle."  Jenny flung her arms in the air.  "How can saving the Earth be _my_ responsibility?  So what, earthquakes and tidal waves never happened before I was built?  What did people do back then, huh?"

Jenny hopped off her bed, and walked over to her backpack, checking her schoolbooks.  "I am taking a _day off_.  The world survived before I was built, and it will do just fine without me.  Everyone will probably be _happier_."  She glared out the window, at the surly mob of protesters.  "I'm just going to go to school like a normal teenager and try to salvage what's left of my reputation."

She took a few steps towards the door, until her mother's icy voice stopped her in her tracks.  "XJ-9, I am _ordering_ you to go stop that tidal wave – NOW.  Or _else_."

"Or else _what_?!?" Jenny shouted back.

"Or else we can simply go back to the _old rules_, before those pesky neighbor boys came along," Mrs. Wakeman said coldly.  "Things were certainly a lot simpler then – you remained in this room and only left to respond to emergencies.  You certainly haven't shown me much gratitude for relaxing those rules.  Young lady, if you do not fly to Australia right this instant, there will be _no more_ going to school.  No more movies, no more 'hanging' at the mall, no more 'hanging' with any teenagers at all – _neighbors included_.  Do I make myself clear, XJ-9?"

Jenny gasped, and wondered if her mother realized just how cruel her threat was.  She started to shake with rage.  Then she deployed a giant robotic claw, savagely ripped one of the trouble monitors from the ceiling, and started bashing it to pieces on the floor.  "I _hate_ these _stupid_ monitors!  I _hate_ not having a life!  I _hate_ flying around saving people who hate me!  I _hate_ all of your stupid orders!  And … and …"

She shouted into her mother's face.  "And I HATE YOU!!!"

A terrible silence hung in the room, while mother and daughter stared at each other unblinkingly.  The words hovered in the air like a poisonous fume, a foul odor given off by the emotions churning inside of her.  Part of her wanted to drop to her knees and apologize to her mother on the spot, but another part hoped that the words had hurt her, just a little bit.

Mrs. Wakeman simply folded her arms across her chest, and intensified her glare.

Finally, Jenny broke down and turned away.  She simply had to get out of this room, and Australia was about as far away from Tremorton as you could get.  With one last withering stare at her mother, she deployed her pigtail-jets and her boosters, and exploded out of her bedroom window in a blind fury.  In seconds, she was thousands of feet in the air, where nobody could see the tears streaming from her eyes, or hear her screams of frustration.

Only then did Mrs. Wakeman's shoulders sag.  She took off her glasses and massaged her temples.  _I wonder if I've finally done it.  I wonder if I've finally pushed her too far._  She slowly turned and left her daughter's bedroom, dragging her feet back downstairs.

* * *

Continued in Chapter Three

* * *


	3. Making Waves

* * *

One Good Reason

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Three – Making Waves

* * *

Brad nearly broke his neck running down the stairs.  He finally popped his head free of his black vest, and stopped in front of the hallway mirror just long enough to check his hair.  After all, with all those news cameras next door, there was always the chance that he might get to be on television.  _Jenny must have done something really great this time_, he thought.  _She must have saved the President or something_.  One last check to smooth his collar and his shirt tails, and he was lookin' fabulous.  He flew out the front door, eager to see what the circus next door was all about.

A large, excited crowd filled the yard in front of the Wakeman house, pumping their fists in the air, yelling, and waving large signs.  TV cameramen were wandering about in the crowd, collecting shots, and interviewing folks at random.  It all seemed a bit chaotic, and Brad thought that the crowd seemed a little hostile for a pep rally.  _But that had to be why everyone was here, right?  Jenny saved City Hall last night – maybe the mayor is giving her the key to the city._

Then he started reading the signs.  "End Robot Vandalism."  "Just Say No to Robots."  "Protect Our Children From Robotic Menace." _ I don't believe it.  These people aren't cheering Jenny – they're protesting her!_

"Brad!  Brad, wait up!"  Tuck ran up to him, struggling to get his arm through his sleeve.  He started jumping up and down, trying to see over the hedges.  "What's all the excitement about?"

The protesters started their chant up again, as another news crew started a live feed.  "Hey hey, ho ho, the robot thug has got to go!  Hey hey, ho ho …"

Brad glared at the crowd with a mixture of anger and sadness.  "Let's put it this way, Tuck – this isn't a gathering of Jenny's fan club.  Would you get a _load_ of these idiots?"

"Lemme see!  Lemme see, lemme see!"  Brad finally surrendered, and lifted Tuck up to sit on his shoulders.  Tuck started reading the protest signs out loud.  "'XJ-Nine is an XJ-Nuisance.'  Uh … wow, kinda nasty.  'Keep Us Safe from XJ-9.'  I don't understand that one, Brad.  Jenny's the one that keeps everybody safe, right?"

"You know that and I know that," Brad frowned, "but it looks like this bunch of bozos doesn't."

Tuck still didn't fully understand the crowd's anger.  They watched the protest silently for a few more minutes.  "Wow, these people sure don't like robots, do they?"

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing."  The brothers turned to see that Drew had silently walked up to watch the demonstration along with them.  He was staring with morbid fascination, yet it seemed like he was … _preoccupied_ with something else.  Brad figured that walking up to a huge anti-robot rally couldn't have been the most enjoyable experience for him.  Which explained why he had taken his old human appearance for today … all except for …

"Dude," Brad whispered to him.  He reached up and tugged on his earlobe.  "Most of us humans are wearing them these days."

"Oh, crap."  Drew focused for a second, and with a tiny shimmer of silver-green, two ears flowed out of the sides of his head.  "Can't believe I forgot that.  I'm not really thinking straight this morning."  He gestured towards the chanting crowd in front of the Wakeman house.  "Lovely bunch, huh?"

"All they're missing is the pitchforks and torches," said Brad, not trying to hide his disgust.  "Hey, isn't this a little out of the way for you in the mornings?  Well, I am glad you're here – it looks like Jenny can use all the friends she can get right now."

"Actually, I came over to see her mom.  But it looks like now's not the best time for a visit."

"What do you need to see Mrs. Wakeman for?" asked Tuck.

"Well, I sort of have … um … _robot things_ to talk about," Drew answered uncomfortably.  "And she is a doctor, after all, or the closest thing to a robot doctor I can think of.  It's not like I can go down to Tremorton Mercy Hospital."

"Then let's just head on over," said Brad.  "You can get Mrs. Wakeman to, uh, probe you … or whatever, and we can go visit Jenny.  All we have to do is just walk right through the crowd.  We're not gonna let these clowns intimidate us, right guys?"

Drew looked at the sea of angry faces, shouting anti-robot slogans.  "Uh … yeah, right."  _Maybe I should just come back later …_

But the boys hopped over the hedges anyway, and started making their way through the mass of people and journalists clogging up the front yard.  Brad looked around at the variety of people in the protest; some of them were virtually boiling over with rage, some of them seemed like they were barely interested to be there.  Most of them looked like perfectly ordinary folks, of the sort you'd see a hundred times in the run of a normal day.  But gathered together into a mob, an animalistic mentality seemed to have overtaken them.  The protest was still very orderly, though a pair of police cruisers were parked behind the TV vans to make sure that it stayed that way.

A tall, thin college student with long stringy hair bumped into Brad, shoved by the growing crowd.  Brad was just about to move on, until he saw the student's sign, which read _Save the Whales_.

"Uh, are you sure you're in the right place?" Brad asked him, shouting to be heard.

"Oh, I never miss a good protest," the student grinned, as he adjusted his tie-die headband.  "Uh … you mean this isn't this the protest against toxic polluters?"

A short, rotund woman with a round, pudgy face turned around to answer the student.  "No, we're here to protest that renegade robot that this Wakeman maniac uses to destroy the city!  We're going to pressure the mayor to pass a proclamation, and make him shut down this mad scientist's operation!"

Brad simply couldn't ignore that.  "Destroy the city?!?  She doesn't do that!  Jenny's saved the city more times than you or I can count!"

The pudgy woman was eager to argue, and shouted back at Brad with a grating, nasally voice.  "The plate glass window in my flower shop has been broken twice in the last six months!  I just replaced it last Thursday!  I'm sick and tired of it, and the mayor had better do something about it!"

"Last Thursday …" – Brad thought for a few seconds – "… last Thursday was when Jenny defeated that giant flesh-eating worm that crawled up out the sewers."

"And she destroyed my plate glass window!"

Brad irately flung his arms in the air.  "If Jenny hadn't stopped it, that giant worm would have eaten hundreds of people and left a rampaging trail in carnage in its wake!"

"That window cost me eighty-seven dollars!" screamed the woman, poking Brad with her chubby finger.

The argument started to draw attention, especially from the television news people.  Ever eager for spectacle, cameramen made their way over towards the boys, along with well-groomed reporters, and technicians carrying boom microphones.  More of the protesters took note of them too, and a circle of craziness started to close in on Brad, Tuck, and Drew.

"This is Chet Scarsdale of Channel Six Action News," shouted a tall, handsome man with impossibly perfect hair.  "So you describe yourself as a supporter of  Wakeman's unlicensed robotic experiment?"

"She's not an experiment, she's a _teenage girl_!"  Brad was fighting to keep his temper in check.  "Her name is Jenny, and she's my _friend_!"

"This is Vivian Veracruz from CNS," said an intense woman in a power suit.  "This crowd seems to feel that your 'friend' is more trouble than she's worth," she sneered.  "Isn't it true that the XJ-9 has caused millions of dollars in damage to private and public property in Tremorton since its activation?"

"Umm … uh …"  Brad stammered into the microphone.  "You see, the thing is … "

Then he noticed that Tuck was happily chatting away with the reporter from Channel Ten.  "… then Jenny got her dream chip stuck to 'ON', and she hallucinated that I was a goat boy.  Ha, ha!  She was all zapping stuff with her lasers, and bashing cars and power poles – _Pow!  Blam!_  Oh, oh, oh, and then there was the time we all went to Wizzly World and she freed all the robots, and they ran amok …"

Brad snatched his little brother away from the cameras, and glared into his eyes with irritation.  "Tuck – you are – _not –_ helping."

"What about you?"  The Channel Twelve reporter pushed a microphone into Drew's face.  "What do you have to say about the robotic threat to the city's safety?"

Drew felt like a sheep in the middle of a pack of wolves.  "Bwa … er … um, well, I …"

_move into position all units report operational status tactical analysis complete situational evaluation initiate weapons startup awaiting execution signal obey obey obey obey obey obey obey obey obey obey_

He slammed his hands to his ears, and grimaced as the torrent of voices bombarded his mind.  Drew's knees buckled, and he felt a mild sense of vertigo for a few seconds, until the mental blast subsided.  This had been the worst episode yet.  Echoes and echoes of the same menacing female voice, like a thousand whispers in his brain.

Brad ignored the reporters and grabbed him by the shoulder.  "Drew!  You okay, man?"

"Not sure," he moaned.  "I think I'd better see what the Doc has to say."  They managed to squeeze through the protesters, towards Mrs. Wakeman's front door.  Drew looked over his shoulder at the seething mob, and couldn't help but feel a sense of … _danger_.  There was almost a hundred people shouting anti-robot garbage and waving angry signs.  But the feeling wasn't coming from them.  The protestors were intimidating, annoying … but weren't really dangerous.  _So where is this feeling coming from?_

* * *

One hundred miles above the Hawaiian Islands, the pure blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean stretched from horizon to horizon.  Even at this altitude, islands and cloud patterns moved beneath her at high speed, as she rocketed through space en route to the latest emergency.  The shining crystal-blue ocean was a sight more wonderful than most people ever got to experience in their lifetime.  But Jenny was oblivious to the scenery at the moment.

After the huge fight with her mother, she had actually looked forward to flying out on the emergency mission, hoping that a few minutes in the perfect quiet of outer space would help her clear her head.  But all of the morning's turmoil was still boiling over inside of her.  There was nothing to listen to but her own inner thoughts, and those were focused on maintaining a nice healthy rage towards her mother.  _All she ever does is order me around.  She just sends me out whenever she feels like it, like I was her slave or something.  And when I try to tell her I'm tired of it, she just doesn't understand_.

Jenny angled downward slightly, watching the scattered islands of Micronesia speed by.  She twisted her mouth into a frown, compiling an inventory of her mother's unfairness over the past few months.

_She grew frustrated, as she tried to explain things to her mother.  "But Mom, without ears, I can't wear earrings … and without earrings, I'm just a … a freak!"  Mom just didn't understand how important this was; all the girls at school were wearing earrings!_

_Her mom gasped.  "Earrings?  I designed a state-of-the-art, aerodynamic, streamlined, crime-fighting robot!  Not some simple mannequin to hang with googols and gimcrackery!"  She folded her arms in disgust.  "Earrings!  Oh, the very notion!"  As usual … ask for Mom's help and she just freaks out!_

Jenny started to slip into the upper layers of the atmosphere, and saw the coast of Australia and New Zealand come into view.  She was getting hot and red-faced, but it wasn't from the atmosphere.

_She almost fell over backwards when she realized just how hideous the new eyes were – and Mom had her out walking around in public with these things!  "Normal!?!  You call this normal?  How could you do this to me?!?"  They looked like a couple of periscopes stuck in her face!_

_Her mother was totally perplexed.  "Do what!?!  What are you talking about?"_

_How on Earth could she be so clueless?  "I'm talking about these wiggly-squiggly bug-snakes you call eyes!" she cried.  Didn't she care that she was making her daughter look like a total dweeb?_

She glided gracefully through the stratosphere, speeding along faster than anything else in the sky, dropping towards a line of white clouds drifting over the metropolis of Sydney.  Less than a minute, now.

_She pounded the button on her monitor, but it still wouldn't retract.  Her mother's face just hung there, wearing a smug expression.  "I don't call you to chat, young lady.  I have important things to discuss!"_

_"Mom?!?  What are you still doing here?"  Oh no … the cute new boy was walking this way!_

_"I updated your communications software so you can't tune me out," she gloated.  "Now, about that muck monster …"  She WHAT!?!  She snuck into her bedroom and reprogrammed her in the middle of the night!?!  That … that's the most hideous invasion of privacy that she could possibly imagine!_

That's all her mother ever did.  Give her orders.  Ruin her life.  Tell her what she _couldn't_ do.  Do everything in her power to make sure that she never had any fun.

Her blue-and-white form burst through the clouds, high above the skyscrapers of downtown Sydney.  There were the trademark giant white sail-shapes of the Opera House, jutting out towards the ocean.  Thousands of boats of every shape and size were darting about, along the waterfront and underneath the bridges.  Everything certainly seemed peaceful enough, and a temptation flitted through her mind to simply play hooky and spend the day down on one of the beautiful beaches …

Then she looked at towards the horizon, and saw a blue wall roaring towards the city. 

_Well, it looks like the monitors were right this time._  A huge tidal wave was speeding towards the city, high and wide and certain to cause widespread damage, and probably casualties among the citizenry of Sydney.  It would strike in only a few minutes, but she didn't even have _that_ much time.  The wave was also a lethal threat to the boaters, and already it was growing dangerously close to innocent people, just trying to enjoy a peaceful day on the water.

Jenny rolled her eyes with a sigh.  She was still upset that she had to be here, but she simply couldn't let any harm come to such a large number of people.  It was probably something that her mother had programmed into her.  With a quick series of _clanks_ and _whirrs_, her boosters and wings retracted into her back, and she jetted off towards the face of the monster wave on her pigtail-jets.

"One good wave deserves another," she smirked, as she clasped her hands together.  Her arms popped open, unfolded, and combined into a ten-foot-long cannon barrel.  Then she converted her pigtails into a pair of giant loudspeakers.  Taking aim at a spot about half a mile ahead of the tidal wave, she built up a surge of energy from her internal reactors, and blasted powerful sound waves into the cannon.  The sound intensified, focused, and converted into a powerful ultrasonic beam.

The ocean heaved and frothed as Jenny pumped it with ultrasound energy, until the water started to rise up into a second massive wave – moving away from Sydney, and traveling directly towards the first wave.  She poured on the power, herding the counter-wave away from the city to make sure it collided head-on with the incoming threat.  In mere seconds, the two giant walls of water would slam into each other …

And with a boiling fountain of foam and spray, they collided, canceling each other out.  The folks back on shore had been given a scare and a show, but they were safe now.  The ocean's surface, while it was still roiling and growling like an irritated old sea monster, started to settle down … although there were still secondary swells rippling away from the colossal impact of the twin tsunamis.  Those posed no threat to the city itself.

But there was a large, unfortunate pleasure boat only a short distance away.  The skipper was trying to turn his bow around to point into the surf, but he wasn't acting fast enough.  In a few moments, a series of forty-foot waves was going to bulldoze into the side of the craft.  At the very least, the boat would be flipped over.  Most likely, it would be snapped in two.

Jenny swooped down towards the churning ocean, converting her arms back to normal, and streaked ahead of the rushing swell, towards the imperiled boat.  With a slight tilt of her body, she dove, and disappeared beneath the surface with a spectacular splash.  The two passengers on the boat took no notice of her, though, as they gaped in fear at the oncoming waves.  They braced themselves for the inevitable crushing impact … then nearly fell off their feet as a powerful jolt lifted the boat clear of the water.  The pleasure boat rose safely into the air, and the assaulting waves rushed harmlessly by beneath it.  One of the passengers rushed over to the side and looked down –

"Strike me!" he laughed heartily, pointing over the side.  "Would you have a look at this now?  We just done got our necks saved by this robotic Sheila 'ere!  Good on ya, luv!"

Jenny held the thirty-foot boat aloft without difficulty, balanced on the twin rocket plumes from her feet.  She smiled back at the boater, although she was a bit confused – _I think he just said thank you_.  "You're welcome!  But my name's Jenny, not Sheila."  _I don't think that Mom loaded me with a language disc for Australian.  Oh well, guess this mission wasn't too hard after all …_

"Holy Dooley!  Let's have a look-see," grinned his partner.  He leaned over to take a look at Jenny … then his attention was caught by something else.

The color drained from his face, and he raised a shaking hand, pointing towards the ocean.  "_Crikey._"

Jenny turned to look, wondering what could possibly be the problem now – the waves were gone, and the ocean was settling back to normal.  Wait – no, that wasn't right.  A huge patch of ocean was starting to swirl and froth like a giant whirlpool.  An audible roar rose up from the water, and the wind started to whip up with strong gusts, making it tricky for her to balance the boat.  But she didn't want to set it back down until the seas calmed.  The whirlpool grew chaotic, and suddenly heaved into the air …

Something breached the water, rising up from beneath the waves.  Something _immense_.  

It was a vessel of some sorts, with a massive, rounded body like a giant metal dome – it probably _was_ close to the size of a domed stadium.  The vessel's hull, painted an ugly dull green, kept rising out of the water, higher and higher into the sky, filling the air with an overpowering _thrum_ from its engines.  Then the flat bottom of the vessel's hull cleared the surface, and still it rose higher into the air.  This was no submarine, nor was it a naval vessel.  Jenny stared in astonishment as the mammoth ship floated hundreds of feet above her head, and blotted out the sun.  Its silhouette stood out clearly now – a large round body with a small spherical hull attached to the front, and six long, spindly booms stretching out in every direction.  It hung amongst the clouds, looking like a giant evil insect.

"That's … that's a Cluster starship," Jenny gasped.

She set the boat back on the water as gently as possible, but everyone's eyes were focused skyward, at the colossus floating in mid-air.  She hovered in place, and for a few moments it seemed like nothing was happening.  Then a powerful loudspeaker crackled to life from somewhere on the hull of the starship, piercing the air with a painfully loud test tone.  Then silence, save for the low rumbling hum of the ship's drives.  Then a smooth, condescending voice –

"Well done, Jennifer.  I must say, your feats of strength never cease to impress me.  Although, I'm afraid I cannot say the same for your stubborn choice of allegiance.  Perhaps today is the day that I manage to … _persuade_ you … to join us in the Cluster family."

Jenny recognized the voice all too well.  The revulsion on her face was plain as day.  "_Vexus_."

It looked like her troubles for the day were just beginning.

* * *

Continued in Chapter Four

* * *


	4. The Threat Revealed

* * *

One Good Reason

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Four – The Threat Revealed

* * *

The giant Cluster starship hovered motionless a thousand feet above the ocean waves, its engines filling the air with a deep unnatural hum.  Trickles of sea water still drizzled down from its grimy green hull, dripping from hundreds of small metallic spines.  Its sheer size alone projected an ominous sense of menace.  It almost certainly had something to do with the mysterious tidal wave that had just threatened to drown millions in Sydney.  And now the commander of the starship had announced herself to be none other than the ruthless mechanical sovereign, the self-proclaimed liberator of robots, the terror to all humans everywhere: Queen Vexus of Cluster Prime.

The speakers on the hull of the starship boomed once more with the queen's condescending voice.  "Come now, my dear, be reasonable.  I would _truly_ hate to destroy an exceptional young robot such as yourself.  Surrender is your only option."

Floating on her pigtail-jets below, Jenny seemed like nothing more than a metallic gnat compared to the Cluster dreadnought.  But she clenched her fists, and glared back up at the ship with furious resolve.  She _hated_ the Cluster.  _Paradise for robots – yeah, sure, as long as you're willing to get a control chip implanted in your brain!  I've already got Mom giving me orders twenty-four hours a day.  Like I want to take even more orders from that miserable witch!  Why can't these losers just leave me alone?!?  I do – NOT – need this!!!_

"I'll never join the Cluster, Vexus!" she shouted up at the ship.  "What part of 'never' can't you clowns understand?!?  Now, why don't you and your disgusting bug-ship just fly back home to Cluster Prime, before I kick your butt?"

"I come all the way to this backwater planet for a visit, try to have a nice little conversation – and all I get in return is hostile, clichéd dialog.  Oh, Jennifer, for shame."  The queen chuckled evilly.  "Well, I'll forgive your bad manners this time – after all, I know you're feeling _so_ very tired today."

That took Jenny a bit by surprise.  _How would she know that?_  "I'm feeling good enough to turn that ship of yours into scrap metal if you don't leave Earth right now!"

"Oh, such a _brave_ girl."  Vexus' oily-smooth voice dripped with mock compassion.  "Flying all over the planet, saving these ungrateful hairless apes from accidents and disasters, for seventy-two hours in a row.  Avalanches, fires, train derailments – it's all been _very_ amusing to watch."

Jenny's face plunged with an astonished _gasp_, as Vexus' laughter rained down from the loudspeakers.  Then her eyes crackled with outrage.  "You … you and your Cluster goons have been causing all of these stupid emergencies!"  _She's been endangering lives – and ruined my movie night – just to mess around with me?!?  Why – why that dirty rotten –_

"Guilty as charged," purred the robot queen.  "You know, all that running around can really take its toll on a robot after a while.  I think we need to schedule a little _down-time_ for you, dear."

The hypnotic _thrum_ of the starship's engines was broken by sharp metallic cracks.  Dozens of doors slid open along the bottom of the hull, revealing batteries of laser guns, their barrels glowing with an intense ruby light.  The lasers pivoted in unison, aiming at one common target … and then crackled to life with brilliant shafts of laser energy.  Jenny fired her pigtails up to full thrust, and began to slalom through the sky as the laser fire burned the air around her into a haze of ozone.  Even in her fatigued state, she confidently danced her way between the lasers without so much as a singe on her paint job.

"Now it's my turn," she grinned, as she flipped over on her back and brought her laser-limbs to bear on the Cluster leviathan.  Brilliant blue laser bolts sprang from her weapons, and ripped into the gun bays of the starship.  While Jenny was flitting through the air in random patterns, the massive starship and its weapons were easier, stationary targets.  Even while crimson gunfire continued to chase through the sky after her, Jenny kept scoring hits on the gun mounts, and more Cluster lasers fell silent.

But the law of averages finally caught up with her, and she lurched as a laser bolt slammed into her back.  That slowed her down momentarily, and allowed more lasers to hammer her body.  Gritting her teeth in concentration, she fired the rockets in her feet for an extra burst of speed to get out of trouble.  _All right, that's about enough of this nonsense.  Time to take the fight to Queen Thing herself._

Jenny climbed into a loop, until she was directly over the top of the starship.  _Stupid Vexus – none of her laser cannons can reach me up here!_  She picked a vulnerable-looking spot on the ship's hull, smiled, and dove directly at it headfirst.  Her pigtails expanded into large blades, and started to rotate, faster and faster, until they whined into a pair of razor-sharp blurs.

The pigtail-blades ripped through the thick armored hull of the Cluster starship with a deafening _shriek_.  She shredded her way through two, then three bulkheads, leaving a trail of destruction behind her as she tunneled through the ship.  Jenny busted through one more wall, and suddenly found herself in a long, barren corridor.  She paused to take a quick scan of the inside of the ship …

When the ship's internal speakers came on with a familiar voice.  "Sigh – just look at the mess you've made, my girl.  I'm going to have to get that painted over, I suppose."

"Pretty lame laser show, Vexus," Jenny chuckled.  "Guess I'm not as tired as you'd hoped, _huh_?"

Mechanical footsteps rumbled through the corridor, from the direction of the ship's bridge.  A dozen Cluster drones roared around the corner, charging directly towards the teenage intruder.

"You didn't think it was going to be _that_ easy," Vexus purred over the PA system.  "Tell you what, dear – you've done so well to make it this far.  I'll give you one last chance.  You'll never reach me on the bridge in your condition.  Join me, join the Cluster family – or be destroyed."

"Let me phrase my answer in the following way," smirked Jenny.  Her rockets re-ignited, and she streaked down the corridor towards the approaching drones.  In less than a second – _whirr, clank, click_ – her arms converted into a giant bulldozer blade.  The drones didn't even have time to react.  She roared through their ranks, sending the robot guards clattering against the walls, and continued onward down the ugly gray corridor – in the direction of the bridge.  _Never reach you, huh?  We'll see about that._

Alarms sounded with shrill electronic howls, and the hallway lights flashed a crimson red.  More large robotic cockroaches, Cluster drones, spilled out of side doors into the corridor, turning to face the invading robot girl.  Jenny converted her right hand into a particle beam ray – and pointed straight up, blasting a hole in the ceiling.  She wasn't feeling patient enough to deal with every robotic stooge on this ship.  She wanted to get her frustrations out on the top robot herself.

Jenny started flying _between_ the decks of the ship, blasting through walls, ceilings, floors, and bulkheads, working her way closer and closer to the command level.  Her particle weapon began to glow from the constant firing, and she was getting dangerously close to overload – but the next blast cleared the way into a tall elevator shaft.  She quickly hovered up to the top, stared at the thick steel doors labeled _Bridge_, and took a deep breath.  Jenny slammed her power fist into the doors with vicious force, ripping them from their moorings as if they were made of cardboard.  She jumped through the opening –

And found herself in a vast, circular room lined with electronic displays, tactical maps, and sensor grids.  Huge rectangular screens hung from the ceiling, showing camera views of the world outside.  Dozens of stations were manned by spindly, feeble-looking genius robots, trembling in fear as they watched her walk onto the bridge.  And in the middle of the room, sitting in an ornate, high-backed metallic chair, Queen Vexus sat calmly, with a smug expression on her face.

"Congratulations are in order, I suppose," she smirked, preening one of her long eyelashes.  "Although I must admit, I'm surprised it took you _this_ long to get here."

Jenny allowed herself a few seconds to soak in the moment.  "It's finally just you and me, Vexus," she grinned.  She clanked down a few stairs and approached the Cluster queen, eager to pay her back for all the misery she'd inflicted in her life.  But Vexus didn't seem worried – if anything, her sneering smile grew more arrogant with every step Jenny took.  _I'll wipe that smile off your face soon enough._

"Surrender now, Vexus," she said, "and _maybe_ I'll go easy on you."

To her astonishment, Vexus started laughing.  "Oh, Jennifer, you are simply _darling_.  I do _so_ love our little get-togethers.  I have only one little regret …"

She grinned wickedly.  "I wish I was _actually there_ to see the look on your face."

"I don't have time for – huh?"  Jenny grabbed Vexus' arm, and her metallic hand passed _right through her_.  Stunned, she tried to grab her shoulders, and almost fell forward, passing right through Vexus' suddenly ghostly form.

Vexus laughed with even greater enthusiasm.  "It's amazing what they're doing with holograms these days, isn't it?  I told you it wasn't going to be that easy.  Such a simple task to lure you here – honestly, I'm a little embarrassed for you."

Jenny swung her fists through the hologram again, her confidence evaporating by the second.  "You … you _let_ me break onto your ship?"  _This is a trap?_

"Not feeling terribly swift today, are we dear?  Perhaps you should lie down and _relax_."

"That's the signal!" yelled one of the genius-bots.  He tossed a switch, and Vexus' image faded from view – and the floor beneath Jenny's feet hummed with intense electrical current.

It instantly became powerfully magnetic.  Her moment of triumph was over – now suddenly, Jenny couldn't budge her feet so much as an inch; a few seconds later, unable to resist the intense pull, she fell over backwards, her back and arms pinned to the floor.  Even her pigtails were immobilized.  She was able to move her eyes though, and from the dark corners of the command room, she saw dozens of drones and warriors emerge from the shadows, forming a circle around her.

One of the drones gave her a evil smile, and pulled out a small pistol-grip applicator.  And it was loaded with a softly beeping Cluster obedience chip.

* * *

 "Dr. Wakeman!  Dr. Wakeman, Chet Scarsdale from Channel Six!  If you'd care to tell us …"  "Doctor, this is Corky Summers for Channel Twelve Prime News!  Can we just get a minute …" "Doctor, I'm Lance Livingston from TTV, if I could just ask you a few questions …"

She moaned with relief as the last lock was finally secured, even as the swarm of reporters continued shouting questions at her through the front door.  Brad, Tuck, and Drew had barely gotten inside when the media had sensed their chance to question Dr. Wakeman.  It had taken all of the strength in her diminutive frame to beat them back and close the door.  She dusted her hands off against her yellow lab coat, and glared at her barely-welcome guests through smudge-covered glasses.

"Well, as usual, you've managed to visit at a most _inconvenient_ time," she glowered, as she walked back to the desk monitor in her lab.  "If you're looking for XJ-9, she is out on a mission, in Australia.  So as you can imagine, I am very busy right now, and …"

"Wow!  Australia!" grinned Brad.  "Heh, heh.  G'day, mate.  What's the big emergency?  Kangaroo stampede?  Crocodile wrestling?"

Tuck rushed up to Mrs. Wakeman's monitor and started randomly pushing buttons.  "Let's get her to bring us some of those funny crooked sticks that come back when you throw them!  Those are cool!"

"If you don't mind!" she said, smacking Tuck's hand away.  "I am not in the mood to put up with your childish antics!  Now you can wait quietly until XJ-9 returns, or you can see yourselves out the back door.  You should know the way by now, you're over here often enough."  She grabbed a pencil, and started scribbling notes down on a clipboard beside her computer.

"Sorry, Mrs. W," said Brad.  "No need to be testy ..."

"I am not being testy!" she shouted, snapping her pencil in half.  "Blasted monitor, the signal is on the fritz – I'm barely receiving any telemetry from XJ-9 at all.  Oh, if that girl has deactivated her communications link again … _Oooooooooh!!!"_

She flinched as a loud, persistent knocking came from the front door.  "Dr. Wakeman, Corky Summers for Channel Twelve.  We'd like to ask you a few questions about your robotic creation …"

Drew cleared his throat.  "Umm … is this a bad time for you, Doc?"

"And just what do YOU want?" she barked back at him, with glaring, frazzled eyes.  "You must want something – after all, you are a _teenager_, and teenagers only seem to be capable of thinking about themselves!  I believe it must be hard-wired into the adolescent brain.  Do something for _me_, make something for _me_, what about _me_ …  me, me, ME?!?"

The tension in the room was practically dripping from the walls.  Drew and Brad exchanged a glance and silently came to the same conclusion – _oh yeah, BIG fight with Jenny this morning_.  "This _is_ a bad time, isn't it?  Look, maybe I'll just head on in to school …"

After an awkward pause, the doctor heaved her shoulders with an aggravated sigh.  "Wait a minute, Andrew.  Since I do not seem to be able to contact my daughter …" – she grit her teeth – "… my headstrong, obstinate, _infuriating_ daughter …" – she relaxed – "… at the moment, I suppose I have time to listen to your tale of woe.  What seems to be the problem?"

He began to regret coming over; between the shouting mob, the news reporters, and the tension with her daughter, how silly would it sound to complain about having had a few bad dreams?  "It's … it's nothing, Doc.  I've just been feeling a little _off_ for the past three days – probably just need to get some more sleep.  Like you said, you've got plenty to worry about already.  I should just leave and …"

"NNNNGHHH!!!"  Drew slammed his hands to his head, shocking her with the sudden action.  "Arghhh … just … shut … UP!!!"  He started to shudder, as if he was having a seizure.  Alarmed, Brad grabbed him by the shoulders, and helped him stumble his way into a chair.

"Oh my," said Mrs. Wakeman, tapping her chin with a pencil.  "That _is_ rather peculiar.  Hmmm … I could run a quick pan-spectrum scan I suppose, to see if anything shows up."

"It doesn't _hurt_," said Drew, trying to downplay their concerns.  "It's just really annoying."

"Maybe so, but we still do not understand the inner workings of your nanobot-body very well, Andrew.  Better to be safe than sorry."  The doctor rummaged around in a desk drawer, and pulled out an odd-looking electronic box with a small antenna.  "Now, this won't hurt a bit.  Er … at least I think it won't – I've never used it on myself."

The doorbell started ringing again, and she twitched with anger as the shouting continued.  "Dr. Wakeman, Corky Summers for Channel Twelve!  If we can just get five minutes of your time today …"

Tuck hopped up and down excitedly.  "Ooh!  Mrs. Wakeman!  Let me!  Let me do the probe thingy!"

"Very well, Tucker," she sighed.  "Simply press the red button, and hold it next to Andrew's head for sixty seconds.  It shouldn't take me that long to dismiss these rabble-rousers."

Tuck pulled a stool up next to Drew's chair, his little chest swelling with pride at being given such an important job.  "Now open your disk drive and say _ahhh_," he smirked.  Drew just rolled his eyes back at him, and sunk back in the chair.

Mrs. Wakeman worked her way through the door locks, even as the obnoxious doorbell continued to ring.  Finally, she flung the door open with murder in her eyes, and glared up at the perky blonde from Channel Twelve who apparently couldn't take no for an answer.  "I have told you before and I shall tell you again, I do not have time for any of your foolish …"

But both women were rudely surprised as the news team from CNS – consisting of two tall barrel-chested cameramen, and the cool yet intense interviewer Vivian Veracruz – boldly marched through the crowd of protesters, and came up to the front door.  Apparently, TV news really was a cutthroat business; one of the cameramen simply shoved Corky aside, allowing Vivian to stride up and steal her spot.

"Sorry about that," sneered Vivian, "had to take care of some business back in the truck.  Dr. Wakeman, I presume?  I'm Vivian Veracruz from CNS, and I'd like a few minutes of your …"

"I shall tell you the same thing I told your colleague.  I have no time for these harassing questions about my work with XJ-9.  Now, if these interruptions continue, I shall be forced to call the police …"

"Oh, I'm so very sorry, Doctor," purred Vivian, feigning remorse.  Her eyes darted back and forth quickly, scanning the inside of the Wakeman home through the open door.  She saw a plaque hanging on the wall, and put on an innocent smile.  "Although we weren't _going_ to do a story on XJ-9.  I understand you recently won an award for … mold spores?"

Mrs. Wakeman's attitude changed completely in a split second, and an excited smile broke out on her face.  "Why … why yes, that would be my research on Martian mold spores!"

"How fascinating!" beamed Vivian.  "Would you like to talk about your work for a few minutes?"

Drew squirmed restlessly in his seat while "Doctor" Tuck held the probe next to his ear, trying to look like he understood what the gizmo was saying.  Suddenly the lights on the probe pulsed with a high-pitched scream.  Drew's head snapped up, and something that had been rattling around in his mind started to come into focus.  His eyes grew wide; his face grew pale.

Brad was playing around with a scale model on the doctor's desk.  "Drew, what is it?"

He almost seemed gripped with terror.  "Th-that voice," he stammered.  "I _recognize_ that voice."

Mrs. Wakeman cheerfully invited Vivian and her team to come in the house, eager to talk about her mold research.  Vivian smiled graciously.  "I really do appreciate this, doctor.  I must say, it's an honor to meet an intellectual such as yourself."  Vivian extended her arm to shake hands …

Which was when Drew went insane.

"DOC!!!  NO!!!"  He bolted out of his chair.  With three running steps, to the horror of everyone, Drew barreled into the lovely young Vivian Veracruz with a flying tackle, knocking her and her cameramen back outside.  They sprawled gracelessly on the front walkway, to the shock and amusement of the crowd, catching everybody completely off guard.  Television cameras rolled and lenses zoomed, lapping up every second of the latest Wacko Wakeman public relations disaster.

Mrs. Wakeman stood in the doorway, red-faced with fury.  "Andrew!  Have you gone mad …"

Then she saw the shattered syringe next to Vivian's hand, leaking clear fluid into the ground.

Vivian Veracruz got to her feet, her lovely face twisted in rage and hate.  She grabbed Drew by the shoulders and … _lifted him over her head_, in one swift, clean motion.  He twisted uncomfortably in her hands, not quite believing what was happening.  Then with a mighty heave, Vivian flung Drew back at the house – smashing him through the living room window.

The crowd gasped in awe at the display.  Mrs. Wakeman couldn't believe her eyes; neither could Brad or Tuck.  Drew gathered himself together, and looked back through the broken window.

Vivian regained her calm composure.  "All right then, we'll do this the hard way."  She struck a pose on the front walkway and tapped a device on her wrist.  Then she started to _shimmer_, like a bad television signal.  The protesters and reporters started to back away nervously, as a glowing halo of light sprang into existence around Vivian's feet, and quickly slid up her body.  The green power suit, the toned legs, the attractive young woman disappeared before their eyes.  An evil cackle rose from her throat, and the halo of light faded away, revealing a tall, wasp-like form –

Queen Vexus, ruler of Cluster Prime, now stood on the front walkway of the Wakeman house.

The two CNS reporters underwent a similar transformation, revealing themselves to be Cluster roach-drones.  Vexus smiled at the astonished Mrs. Wakeman.  "I was just telling young Jennifer, it's amazing what they're doing with holograms these days."

Then she turned to the stunned crowd; cool, calm, and smiling politely into the television cameras.  "Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for this important news bulletin."  Her eyes narrowed into a menacing glare.  "You are now all prisoners … of the _Cluster_."

* * *

Continued in Chapter Five

* * *


	5. Siege Mentality

* * *

One Good Reason

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Five – Siege Mentality

* * *

The crowd in front of the Wakeman house gasped in unison, with their eyes riveted on the robot invaders, simply too stunned to move.  To Vexus, the terror on their faces was something to be savored.  That was how it always should be; wretched humans quaking in fear before their robotic betters.  She allowed herself a second to enjoy the moment, returning their stares with a sinister grin – then the orb between her antennae glowed a soft yellow, as she issued a silent command to her "news truck".

Just as the CNS "reporters" were not what they seemed, neither was the truck.  It housed the remote holographic link that Vexus had used to taunt Jenny, thousands of miles away.  And now, two panels on the roof swung open, revealing a pair of pneumatic launchers.  With a rapid series of _bangs_, they jettisoned large metallic barrels, shooting them dozens of yards in every direction.  As the crowd scrambled out of the way, the barrels began to unfold and expand.  The air was filled with the sounds of cogs ratcheting, gears grinding, and motors whining.  In seconds, the barrels had transformed themselves into Cluster roach-drones, encircling the human mob with their stun-ray antennae deployed.

One of the olive-green robots approached Vexus and bowed its head.  "Your Highness, the humans have been taken prisoner, and the perimeter is secure."

"Good work," she smiled.  She swept her arm towards the crowd.  "Drop everything, and get down on your hands and knees, like the vermin that you are!"  She took a few steps towards a pot-bellied, middle-aged man who was paralyzed with fear.  She laughed, took his protest sign from him, and read it aloud.  "'Save Tremorton _From_ XJ-9!'  I have good news for you, primate – you don't have to worry about XJ-9 showing up today.  Be careful what you wish for, pathetic fool!"

Her gloating was interrupted by the wail of sirens roaring towards the house.  Twelve police cruisers screeched to a stop fifty yards away, and body-armored SWAT officers quickly deployed around the front of the Wakeman residence.  Each cruiser carried an extra surprise – a heavily-armed police-bot that deployed from the trunk, and rapidly wheeled to a pre-assigned position.  The police department now had their own perimeter, surrounding the Cluster drones, the human prisoners, and Vexus herself.

The police captain raised a megaphone.  "Attention robot invaders!  This is the Tremorton Police Department.  Release your hostages and surrender immediately!"

Vexus seemed amused, and struggled to keep a straight face.  Rising into the air, she gracefully glided towards the semi-circle of policemen, with a silent, dangerous smile.

The SWAT teams and their police-bots trained their weapons on her, and the captain continued.  "Slowly now!  Slowly, raise your hands in the air!"

"Why, anything you say, officer."  She lifted her mighty forearms, showing her empty hands –

And rapidly fired a series of small black darts from her palms.  Before anyone could react, the darts struck the large armored chests of the police-bots, and burrowed inside their bodies, overriding their internal circuitry.  Twelve police-bots briefly shuddered with spasms of electrical sparks – then turned on their human partners, obeying their new Cluster programming.  They quickly disarmed the astounded SWAT officers, adding them to the group of prisoners.

Vexus descended next to one of the seven-foot police-bots, as it led the police captain away at gunpoint.  She ran a long, twisted finger along its blue-painted chest.  "Ah, there's just something about a robot in uniform," she purred.  "Now for that annoying doctor …"

But as she walked back towards the Wakeman house, she was startled by a jarring metallic clatter.  A series of thick metal shingles cascaded down from the roof, covering the walls and windows, each layer interlocked with the previous one.  Sheets of metallic plating ratcheted across the rooftops.  With a few final _kachunks_ and _clanks_, the house was encased within a protective cocoon of metal shielding.

Vexus' mouth twisted into a frown.  If it hadn't been for that irritating yellow-haired human, the doctor would've been drugged with hypnotic obedience serum by now.  Now this metal shielding would slow things down further.  She did not _like_ delays.

* * *

Brad peered out through a slot in the metal plating, taking stock of the chaos that had erupted on the front lawn.  The situation was bad and getting worse by the second.  "Thirty, thirty-one … I count thirty-two Cluster robots out there.  Plus, that Vexus chick took care of the police all by herself, and now she's controlling their robots too!"  He gave Mrs. Wakeman a nervous look.  "Are you sure these metal plates can hold up against all of that?"

"The storm shutters will give us some protection," said Mrs. Wakeman, dabbing her forehead with a folded handkerchief.  "I built them to withstand a Category Four hurricane.  Granted, there hasn't been a hurricane in Tremorton in over sixty years.  Oh, people told me I was crazy to put retractable metal panels on a two-story Victorian, but who's laughing now, hmm?"

"Mrs. Wakeman!  A little focus here!"  Brad clutched at his spiky red hair.  "We've got to call Jenny!"

"Yes … yes, of course!"  She ran over and hopped into her swivel chair, and start madly typing away on her computer keyboard.  "Oh my, that girl had better not have her monitor turned off, or the Cluster will have our guts for garters!"

Brad leaned back against a table and tried to slow down his racing heartbeat.  "Okay … everything is totally cool, folks.  Jenny's going to be here in a few minutes, and then we'll have front-row seats to some big-time Cluster butt-kicking.  Won't that be cool, Tuck?  Tuck?"

"O-o-over here," squeaked a trembling little voice from the living room.

"Tuck, come out here," said Brad, shaking his head.  "Don't be such a big fraidy-cat!"

Tuck's head popped up from behind the sofa.  "_Hello_ – there's an army of bloodthirsty metal cockroaches with an evil robot queen on the front lawn.  I think my complete and utter terror is totally justified."

Drew's head popped up next to Tuck's, his face as pale as a sheet.  "I have to go with the little guy on this one, Brad."

"Oh, come on!"  Brad folded his arms with disgust.  "Drew, you're a robot, for crying out loud!  With all those freaky stretching and morphing powers – you can just do some of that robot kung-fu chop-sockey on those Cluster drones!  Don't tell me that _you're_ afraid."

"_Ha!_  If I still wore underwear, they'd need changing by now."  He jumped up, waving his arms.  "This Vexus woman – robot – whatever.  She's the head of the whole Cluster outfit, right?"

"Far as I know, yeah.  She's the queen."

"Well I've been hearing her _voice_ in my head for the past three days now," Drew gulped.  "Aren't these Cluster thugs all about kidnapping and assimilating robots into their big collective electro-brain, or whatever?  Hey, I've kind of grown attached to the whole 'free will' thing, thank you very much, and I'd like to hold onto mine for a while longer!"

"W-well, I know what they think of _humans_," shivered Tuck, thinking of the time he and his brother had been held captive during their first Cluster encounter.  "They want to make us all their slaves!"

"_Pfft_, you two are a couple of old ladies," smirked Brad.  "Jenny'll be here soon to mop the floor with these losers, and then we'll have a good laugh about the whole thing during Geometry class."

"I wouldn't start laughing just yet," said Mrs. Wakeman, in an ashen voice.  The boys realized that she was about to deliver bad news, and they huddled around her workstation monitor.  "I cannot raise XJ-9 on any of her emergency frequencies."

"Oh, just super," huffed Tuck.  "Jenny picked a fine time to throw a hissy fit."

"It's not that," the doctor explained.  "I am not able to send or receive any transmissions from XJ-9 because all communications are currently being jammed.  I can't even make a telephone call.  See for yourself."  Just as she had said, the computer monitor on her workstation was filled with crackling, hissing static.  "A powerful Cluster jamming signal is being broadcast from somewhere very close by – most likely from the antennas on that phony 'news van'."

"Jenny has no way of knowing that we're in trouble, then," gulped Brad.  They let that unpleasant realization sink in for a few seconds.

Mrs. Wakeman was curious about something.  "Andrew, did I hear you say that you've been hearing Vexus' voice in your mind?  Is that the reason that you came here this morning asking for help?"

Drew nodded.  "I've been hearing her on and off over the past three days – in my dreams, even when I'm awake.  I actually hear her right now," he grimaced.  "Didn't know who it was, but when that reporter lady walked in, I recognized her voice, and something in my brain just screamed 'danger'."

"Hmmm … fascinating," she mumbled.  "The nanobots in your body – which are Cluster technology, after all – are sensitive to Cluster communication frequencies.  Perhaps it's something left over from your conversion into an android.  Your subconscious appears to be picking up Vexus' control signals."

"What does _that_ mean?!?" asked Drew, his eyes frazzled.  "This 'Vexus' is taking over my mind?!?"

"You certainly seem to be your normal self right now," said Mrs. Wakeman, "but there's no way of knowing whether that will remain the case.  Of course, it's all a moot question if we cannot contact XJ-9 before those Cluster robots enslave us."  She rubbed her hands together fretfully.  "Oh, I must find a way to re-establish a link with her!  It's the only way to …"

"_Wakeman!_" shouted a bone-chilling voice, from the front lawn.

They moved over to the window, and looked out through the narrow gap in the metallic shutters.

Vexus stood a mere twenty feet away, glaring at the shielded house with aggravation.  "An interesting little feature you've added to your nest, mammals.  Although it hardly makes a visitor feel welcome."

She gestured towards a dozen Cluster drones, with laser-stalks deployed from their shells, taking aim at the house.  "I could simply have my drones blast away until your little home was filled with holes, but there's an easier way to settle this."  She snapped her fingers, and half the drones turned around, training their weapons on their human prisoners.

"Now, doctor, you have five minutes to collect all of your blueprints and diagrams of XJ-9, and walk out of the house to surrender yourself to me.  Otherwise, I shall pick one of these miserable meat creatures at random every sixty seconds, and have them disintegrated into carbon dust."

A chorus of gasps washed over the crowd, as they realized the deadly seriousness of their situation.  Mrs. Wakeman recoiled in shock, appalled that Vexus would vaporize a hundred people just to get to _her_.  Why on Earth would she want her …?

"She wants me _and_ the blueprints," gulped the doctor.  "She doesn't simply want XJ-9.  She wants to build an _army_ of XJ-9's, no doubt to use in a mass invasion of the Earth."

Brad swallowed the lump in his throat, and pounded his fist into his hand.  "Don't worry, Mrs. Wakeman.  _We'll_ protect you as long as we can.  I'm not going to be some robot's houseboy on Cluster Prime …"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute," said Drew, desperately trying to think.  "Doc, can't you figure out a way to break through the jamming, and get an emergency call off to Jenny?"

"Well of _course_ I can," she replied, as if it were an insult to her abilities as a scientist.  "It is simply a question of increasing the power to the transmitter.  Yes … yes, that's it!  Increased power!  My experimental reactor in the basement would provide more than enough power to burn through the Cluster jamming signal.  I'll have to get started right now – but it will take more than five minutes for me to set it up, I'm afraid."

"But if you don't surrender, Vexus is going to start zapping people into charcoal," said Tuck.

"Then she'll just have to do _both_."  Drew's shoulders heaved with a deep, shaking sigh, and patterns of softly rippling silver-green waves started to flow over the surface of his body.

* * *

Jenny strained with all of the power in her phenomenal robotic body, and tried to lift her right hand just one inch off the floor.  But the powerful electromagnet held her motionless, as if she was welded to the deck.  She tried to deploy a set of rocket boosters, but the motors in her leg housings were disabled by the magnetic field.  Her pigtails wouldn't rotate, and she couldn't turn her head from side to side.  Just about the only part of her body that could move was her eyes, and right now they were focused on the Cluster drone holding the control-chip injector pistol.

He smiled mockingly.  "So where do you want it?  Left side, or right?"

"What do you think you're doing, you sniveling peon!" bellowed a deep, sneering voice.

The drones backed off to let a massive robot bull his way through the crowd.  His V-tapered body towered over twelve feet tall, and the roach-drones shrunk back under his scornful glare.  From the elaborate pattern of dull greens on his body, and the way the drones reacted to him, Jenny figured that he was the starship's commander.  But more than that, there was something familiar about him; maybe his arrogant sneer, or that ridiculous hair, sticking out from his head like a unicorn's horn.

He strutted over and snatched the injector pistol from the hands of the cowering drone.  "Do you think that a common bucket of bolts like yourself should have the honor of capturing XJ-9, instead of your glorious Commander?"  The drone silently shook his head _no_.

Jenny studied the Cluster commander's face, trying to place it.  _I'm sure I've seen this clown before.  He sure is full of himself … you'd think he'd try to do something about those ridiculous gap teeth._

The big robot struck a melodramatic pose with the injector.  "Now, when the history records are written, and future generations celebrate our total conquest of the planet Earth, one name shall be above all others.  Today, every robot in the Cluster Empire shall learn the name of …"

"Oh, for criminy's sake," sighed Jenny.  "Is that you, Smitus?"

"_Argh_ – don't interrupt me!" bellowed the Commander.  "And the name is Blitus!  Blitus, not Smitus!"

"Well, _sor-ry_," she smiled sarcastically.  "You sure do look like him, though."

"Smitus is my older brother.  Oh yes, big brother Smitus," he growled.  "Came off of the assembly line ten minutes before I did.  Graduated from the Cluster Academy six months ahead of me.  He always was Mom's favorite.  But where he failed miserably in battle, I now stand victorious!  Blitus, Captain of the Resupply Fleet, Procurer of Spare Parts, Writer of Very Strong Memos … and Annoyer of Worlds!!!"  He paused a moment.  "Hmm, 'Conqueror of Earth' is really going to jazz up my title."

Jenny rolled her eyes.  "Sheesh, what a _dweeb_."

"Am not!" he shouted.  He shot a nasty look at a drone that was fighting back a chuckle.  "Enough talk!  Now, XJ-9, prepare yourself for defeat at the hands of Blitus!"

"All right, all right, you win."  Jenny winced with mock fear.  "But do me a favor?  Could you put the control chip in my hip?  I don't want it stuck on the side of my head.  It'll look like a giant zit."

"Foolish teenager, even now you're worried about your complexion," sneered Blitus.  "Very well, then.  Let me just … _ungh_ … reach over here …"  Jenny's hips were pinned down in the center of the magnet-trap, and Blitus had to lean over a bit to reach them …

And he leaned directly over the ultra-strong magnet.  It yanked his arm to the floor with a loud _clang_, pinning it motionless with the chip injector stuck in its hand.  Blitus grunted in frustration, and struggled with all his might, trying to pull his hand free; but he was stuck as thoroughly as Jenny was.  Finally, with a burst of strength, he pulled one last time – and dislocated his robotic arm at the elbow.  He fell over backwards with a metallic _thud_, his forearm still securely pinned to the magnetized floor.

A few Cluster drones couldn't help themselves, and snickered at the pratfalls of their almighty Commander.  Blitus grew furious, and shook his remaining fist at the genius-bots manning the engineering panels.

"Well don't just stand there, you worthless piles of junk – turn off the magnet so I can get my arm!"

The genius-bot raised a sheepish finger.  "Uh … but Commander, if we turn it off, then …"

"That's an _order_," hissed Blitus, his eyes glowing red with fury.

The genius-bot pulled a large knife-switch, and the hum of electricity in the floor died down.  Blitus reached down, grabbed his dark green forearm, and gingerly reattached it to his elbow joint.  He flexed his fingers against the handle of the injector pistol, and smiled with relief.  "Everything seems to be functioning normally.  All right, let's get back to business.  Where were we, XJ-9?  Umm … XJ-9?"

Jenny smiled down at him, hovering on her pigtail-jets, her arms converted into a huge plasma cannon.

Blitus' face sunk in dejection.  "Oh, poopy."

He dove for cover, as Jenny opened fire with multiple blasts of fiery blue plasma bolts.  Cluster drones scattered into the air and bounced off the walls, as she looked to dish out some payback.  Plasma ripped into the floor, and tore gaping holes in the control panels.  Monitors and sensor panels crashed from the ceiling, flattening a couple of genius-bots.  Severed claws, limbs, and antennas were littered all over the bridge.  Jenny spun around in tight circles, dodging return fire from the drones, enjoying the chance to vent a little frustration on some Cluster stooges.  She scanned the room, looking for Blitus –

And found him hiding under a radar display.  She dropped to the floor, and converted her arms back to normal.  "Looks like it's just you and me, Commander," she grinned.  Jenny pulled Blitus up to his feet and slammed him against a wall control panel.  She deployed her power fist, and pulled back her arm, scowling at him.  "Now tell me where Queen Vexus is, _right now_."

"Not in the face!  Not in the face!  All right, I'll tell you."  Blitus raised an arm to shield his head, and pointed at a large black lever on the control panel.  "That control operates our tactical scanners.  Turn it on, and you'll see the location of every Cluster robot on Earth."

"Thank you _very_ much."  She pulled the lever, and the picture on the overhead monitor changed –

But instead of a map, or a readout, all she saw was an exterior camera shot of the starship.  Dozens of large retractable doors were slowly swinging open, all over the rounded hull.

Blitus started laughing maniacally, as a loud series of motorized rumbles vibrated their way through the hull.  Then the rumbles were joined by the high-pitched _whine_ of rocket engines.  Dozens of engines.  Hundreds of engines.  Jenny looked around in confusion, trying to figure out what was happening.

"Foolish XJ-9!  You've just launched our full compliment of Cluster attack robots," gloated Blitus.  "They're flying at top speed towards the human city, even as we speak."

"What?!?" she gasped.  _That no-good louse tricked me!_  "Oh, no …"

On the overhead monitor, a dark swarm of robots streamed from the launch bays of the ship.  They had the appearance of ten-foot locusts, slicing through the air on swept-back wings, with three sets of menacing claws dangling from their bellies.  Their heads were topped by long, flexible antennae; and those antennae were fitted with laser blasters.  Two hundred locust-bots sped towards the city, and started to take random shots at buildings and vehicles.  Already, a panic was taking shape in the streets below.

"Well, XJ-9, what will it be?  Revenge against me, or save the pitiful humans in the city?"  Blitus enjoyed a hearty laugh; he already knew what she was going to do.

And so did Jenny – which just made her all the more frustrated.  She tossed Blitus aside, and blasted a hole in the ceiling, flying outside at high speed.  She had to catch up with the swarm of Cluster locusts before Sydney was reduced to a heap of rubble.

* * *

Continued in Chapter Six

* * *


	6. Double Jeopardy

* * *

One Good Reason

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Six – Double Jeopardy

* * *

The quartet of Cluster locusts pulled into a climbing turn, preparing to make another strafing attack on the largest of the downtown skyscrapers. Their long, swept-back wings and streamlined bodies were built for speed. This one group of locust-bots packed more firepower than a squadron of Skyway Patrol aircars – and there were one hundred and ninety-six others just like them swarming through the skies over Sydney. Their antennae flexed to take aim at another target, and glowed with the readiness of a full laser charge. The attack locusts turned towards the skyscraper –

And bellowed into brilliant, fiery explosions as a series of bright blue laser flashes ripped through their metallic abdomens. Jenny shot through the airborne debris like a missile, with both laser-limbs deployed, anxiously trying to keep track of all the robots in the air. For now, the locusts seemed focused on causing senseless destruction and mayhem in the city below. But they wouldn't ignore her for much longer; she needed to make the most of her advantage.

A quick ninety-degree turn to the left brought her directly into the path of another three locusts, and another three shots quickly turned them into a hail of flaming scrap. She corkscrewed through the sky, picking her chances to nibble away at the enemy's numbers; every shot from her lasers was rewarded with a blossom of bright yellow flames against the clear blue sky.

Then the crimson blasts of Cluster weapons fire turned towards her. After losing one-tenth of their forces, the locust-bots decided to eliminate the teenage annoyance. Jenny twisted madly through the air, tiptoeing her way through a barrage of energy beams that came at her from every direction. Her computer-assisted eyesight displayed a blizzard of tracks coming at her on multiple trajectories. She evaluated the Cluster's group combat strategy, and came to a frustrated conclusion –

_I'm probably already late for Geometry class. Sigh, that's three times this week._

It was a strange thing to worry about right _now_, but Jenny found she'd _rather_ worry about school. _Snitzenburg is probably giving a pop quiz. I wonder if Tiff is putting gum on my locker handle again? Argh, I'd be in school right now if Mom hadn't sent me on this stupid emergency call!_

She swerved behind a large formation of locust-bots, and leaned backwards to point her leg housings at them. They split in half, allowing a stack of compact air-to-air missiles to slide out. Eight smoke trails leapt from each of her launchers, streaming towards the dense grouping of robot attackers. A split-second later, sixteen explosions littered the sky with fresh clouds of oil and shrapnel.

_Stupid emergencies. Stupid Cluster. I wish they'd just buzz off and leave me alone! No, they want to plant me with a chip and give me orders. Why does everyone always want to give me orders?_

Two dozen locusts swung around behind her, and began a high-speed attack. Jenny flipped over and pointed two fingers backwards. From each deployed a small nozzle, spraying a fine orange mist into the air. The locusts seemed a bit confused as they flew through the orange cloud, but they pressed on towards their teenage target. Jenny fired a single, small grenade towards her pursuers. It seemed harmless enough, even after it detonated with a small flash – then the orange mist ignited. The locusts disappeared into an airborne inferno, and a soft shower of soot-coated metal flakes drifted out of the sky.

_Vexus wants to give me orders. My teachers want to give me orders. Raszinski wants to give me orders. Mom wants to give me orders. Ooooh yeah, Mom wants to give me lots of orders._

She had eliminated about one-third of the attack locusts; the remainder had turned their attentions to the city below. Jenny could hear the people screaming for help. Just like they always do. _And I'm going to save them, like I always do. Then they're going to shout at me, like they always do._ She grumbled with bitterness as she dipped into a dive, taking aim at a group of vandalizing locusts.

_XJ-9, Stop that meteor! Battle those aliens! But be back in your room before five! Why do I always have to be the one to save the Earth? I can guess Mom's answer to that one …'Because I said so!' She's so mean, bossing me around while she stays nice and cozy at home!_

Six dull yellow locust-bots rampaged along a four-lane street downtown, randomly knocking over cars and destroying buildings. As a crowd of people sprinted for their lives to escape the robotic invaders, Jenny swooped out of the sky and flew over their heads in the opposite direction. With a quick flick of her wrists, a large pair of sawblades deployed from her arms, and _whined_ up to full speed. She took aim at the lead attacker, and flew straight through him, neatly slicing him in half. She circled wildly around the rest, slicing off antennas, legs, and wings, until the locusts were reduced to a pile of spare parts.

Jenny rested against the pile of scrap, letting her hands cool off for a few seconds. This was hard work. And there were over a hundred more of these robots attacking the city.

_I'm surprised Mom hasn't called me on the monitor by now to tell me that I'm doing this all wrong. She totally treats me like a five-year-old! Sometimes I wish she'd just buzz off and stop telling me what to do. I'll bet she's in her lab right now, sipping tea, dreaming up something stupid for me to do!_

* * *

Vexus lightly drummed her fingers against her arm, seething with impatience as she watched the metal-shielded Wakeman house for any signs of movement. She turned to glare with disgust at her prisoners; one hundred pathetic human animals shivering on their knees. She didn't expect any trouble from a bunch like this; they actually looked quite comfortable bowing before her. They were so very inferior to the almighty Cluster. Earth would be but a weekend project for the Cluster Empire, if it weren't for misguided robots like XJ-9. But that inconvenience was going to be remedied today.

"Your time is up, humans," she announced. "Drone Fifteen, pick one of those monkeys at random, and prepare a disintegrator beam …"

"Wait! Wait!" shouted a female voice. The front door unlocked with a series of heavy _clanks_, and creaked open ever so slightly. Then slowly, tentatively, the oversized glasses and disheveled white hair of Dr. Nora Wakeman poked out to take a nervous look around. "I … I just needed a little extra time to get all of my schematics together."

The unimposing doctor took a few steps out onto the walkway, taking in the intimidating sight of a battalion of Cluster soldiers patrolling the front lawn. She clutched onto a leather satchel, nervously holding it against her yellow lab coat, and stared up at Vexus' impressive form with a deer-in-the-headlights look on her face, trembling slightly.

"Oh come now, Doctor, I won't bite you," sneered Vexus. Then she gave her an evil grin. "I have _other_ robots to do that for me." She gestured to a pair of roach-drones. "Grab that pathetic mammal."

The drones slid a pair of claws around Mrs. Wakeman's shoulders, but she shrugged them off. "Hey, hey, knock it off, you overgrown toaster ovens!"

The robot queen arched a quizzical eyebrow, and the doctor tried to regain her composure. "Er … I mean, unhand me, you mechanical ruffians! I am quite capable of walking on my own, thank you very much! You … umm … stainless steel scallywags!"

"Such a bizarre little creature," groaned Vexus. "Very well, then. Move those little runt legs of yours, and get into the van." She pointed to the Cluster-modified CNS news truck.

"Uh … wait a minute. I've kept my part of the bargain. Why not let these people go?" said the doctor, referring to the hostages.

"Bargain? We had no _bargain_. I gave you a _command_, and you obeyed it. And you had best get used to obeying my commands, for that is what you shall be doing for the rest of your miserable life!"

Mrs. Wakeman gulped. "Look, why on Earth do you want a scrawny old woman like me, anyway? I won't make much of a slave." She squeezed her arm. "See? All skin and bones."

"Oh, it's not your muscles I'm interested in. It's your mind." Vexus strolled right up to Mrs. Wakeman, gazing down on her with a mixture of amazement and antipathy. "You know, I could _almost_ respect you, Doctor. For you have designed and built XJ-9, a robot of such amazing ability that I would be proud to call her my own. Of course, once she has joined the Cluster, she _will_ be my own."

"Please," harrumphed Mrs. Wakeman. "Jen – er, XJ-9 will _never_ join the Cluster."

"Ah, but you see, that's where you come in," purred the queen. "Jennifer has this most unfortunate soft spot – she actually thinks of you as her _mother_, not just her creator. Well, when I am holding her 'mother' in my palace dungeon on Cluster Prime, she will come crawling to us. She will do absolutely anything I say. And in the meantime, you will be working twenty hours a day, building XJ-9 robots until you eventually drop dead from fatigue."

The doctor tugged at her black turtleneck, as Vexus glared at her viciously. "You see, doctor, I could _almost_ respect you, but I don't. I despise you. You created the most advanced robot this putrid planet has ever seen, and instead of making her your ruler, you waste her talents on saving all of these sniveling little vertebrates. You corrupt her with your foolish human notions and ideals. And worst of all, you had her oppose me … the perfection that is Vexus!"

She leaned down until she was six inches away from the tip of Mrs. Wakeman's nose, and spoke in a evil whisper. "And just so you know … I haven't forgotten that time at the trade show when you jumped me from behind. I've not above holding a grudge – I will make you _suffer_ for that."

"Now, now, there's no reason we can't be civilized about this," said Mrs. Wakeman, as she shivered in the hooded shadow of the Cluster queen. She glanced skyward, silently praying for a blue-and-white robot girl to streak out of the sky. _Come on, get that radio working, guys!_

* * *

Tuck peeked nervously out the window, watching the tension build in the front yard. "Oh boy, things don't sound too good out there. I don't think Drew can keep up the act much longer."

Mrs. Wakeman – the _real_ Mrs. Wakeman – dashed over next to the little fellow, juggling coils of wire and half a dozen circuit boards. "Hopefully, he won't have to. Andrew is buying us time, and that's we need right now. If he can just keep Vexus talking for a few more minutes, we should have the modifications to the transmitter completed, and then we shall be able to call XJ-9."

"But Jenny's on the other side of the world right now. How fast can she get here from Australia?"

"For our sakes, _very_ fast, I hope." Mrs. Wakeman looked out the window, studying her doppelganger with a hint of disapproval on her face. "Oh, for the love of Heisenberg – my nose is _not_ that big!"

Tuck tried, and failed, to fight back a nasty chuckle, but thankfully they were interrupted by Brad as he galloped up the basement stairs. He had worked up a mild sweat, unrolling heavy black cable as he ran to the doctor's workbench. "All right, Mrs. W – I got those big alligator clamps attached to the terminals on that big reactor gizmo. And I turned all the dials just like you said."

He handed the other ends of the cables to the doctor, and snuck a look outside, leaning his chin on top of Tuck's head. "So how's Drew doing out there? Is he fooling Vexus?"

"Yes, and apparently he feels I am a 'scrawny old woman' who's all 'skin and bones'," she grumbled. "I'm going to have a little _chat_ with him when this unpleasantness is over."

"The evil robot lady is buying it, so far," said Tuck. "She thinks Drew's really Mrs. Wakeman."

"Give me a hand with these capacitors, boys." She handed them a pair of heavy ceramic cylinders, and pulled a screwdriver from her pocket. "With your help, we should have communications restored in about five more minutes."

"I hope we have five more minutes," grimaced Tuck.

* * *

Jenny lifted another locust over her head, struggling to avoid its huge front pincers; she'd learned the hard way that they were very dangerous, and she had the scrapes on her body to prove it. The robot lunged wildly, trying unsuccessfully to break free of her grip; but he had no more success than the last fifty or so of his Cluster brethren. Jenny hopped in the air and hurled him brutally into the pavement, as if she were spiking a football. The robotic insect crumpled up like an accordion, wiggled a few pathetic limbs in the air, then fell silent with a fizzle of electric sparks.

The streets were starting to clog up with lifeless robotic wrecks, but there were still locusts roving about; Jenny wasn't sure _how_ many, just that there were _too_ many. Vexus had been right about one thing – she'd been running herself ragged for the past three days, flying all over the Earth to save people from disasters and accidents, and she was really starting to feel it. A little rest would feel so good –

More screams from down the street. With a burst from her pigtail-jets, she streaked through the city, taking note of the destruction below. It looked bad. Sidewalks were covered with broken glass and buildings had blast scars from laser fire. Smoldering brick and rubble were everywhere. Craters dotted the pavement on almost every street. _Something else for people to blame me for_, she sighed to herself.

The sight of six locust-bots circled around a group of terrified pedestrians snapped her back to attention. The huge ten-foot metallic monsters had corralled two dozen people up against a brick wall. Their antennae glowed with a bright yellow energy, crackling with static discharge, and they prepared to strike against their human prey. The lead locust raised one of his huge claws in the air –

And Jenny grabbed it, hauling the surprised locust-bot off the ground. With a crushing grip, she started swinging it like a giant bat, smashing its body into the other locusts. With each swing, she knocked another robot away from the crowd. Locusts flew off in every direction, spraying gears and sprockets in the air as they crashed lifelessly into the surrounding buildings. The last locust-bot cartwheeled into the upper floor of a large bank building, blasting its plate glass windows into razor-sharp shards.

Then Jenny gasped in horror. A young girl, maybe eight years old, was watching the action from the front of the building; now she stared into the air, like a statue, watching thousands of tiny glass javelins hurtling towards her. The girl shrieked at the top of her lungs, and raised her arms to shield herself –

And suddenly she was airborne, watching the world fly by at fantastic speed. After a moment's panic, she realized that an arm was wrapped around her waist. A metallic, robot arm. Jenny looked down into the girl's stunned, bewildered face, and tried to give her a reassuring smile. She touched down a few moments later, and set the little brown-haired girl down on the sidewalk.

"Phew! That was close. You should be a little more careful." Jenny gave the girl a quick look-over. "Looks like you're okay. Well, I've gotta get back to work …"

"No!" the girl screamed. She lunged at Jenny, and wrapped her arms around her waist. "I'm scared! Please, please don't leave me alone!"

Jenny was a bit startled, and felt a little awkward. "Umm, I'm sorry, little girl, but I really need to go back to stopping the bad guys. That's what I do."

"I know," said the girl, her heaving voice on the brink of tears. "I saw you on the telly. You're Jenny-robot, from America. If you stay with me, then I _know_ I'll be safe."

Jenny was tired, physically, mentally, and emotionally; she just wanted to finish the mission and go home. But looking into the girl's pleading face cut through her self-pity like a knife. She was terrified, and Jenny simply couldn't abandon her without doing something.

"All right … I'm going to rest for a few seconds." Jenny sat down against a wall; she _was_ almost exhausted. She pulled an extension cord from her belly, and plugged herself into a power outlet. "You can help protect me while my power cells recharge. Now, you know my name, but I don't know yours."

"Rebecca," she smiled, feeling a little better. "But … I thought robots never got tired."

"Well, they do when their stupid _mothers_ send them flying around on emergencies all day," huffed Jenny.

Rebecca frowned. "I got mad at my Mom too. She told me to stay in the shelter, but I ran off."

"Well, that really wasn't a good idea. It's not safe to be out right now. You should've listened to your mother." Jenny's face twisted in disbelief … _did those words just come out of my mouth?!?_

"I s'pose … you fly around saving people from 'mergencies?" asked Rebecca, completely fascinated.

"That's right," sighed Jenny, glancing at her power readouts. "The nasty robots that are attacking your city have been doing a lot of bad things over the last few days, and I had to save people."

"Nasty robots? The big bug lady?"

Jenny smiled; apparently everyone knew about Vexus and the Cluster, even little girls. "Her name's Vexus. Yes, she's been up to a lot of dirty tricks this week. And that's why I'm so tired."

Rebecca looked at Jenny with confused, innocent eyes. "I don't unnerstand. If the big bug lady is the one doing all the bad things … then why are you mad at your Mom?"

Jenny chuckled at her, until she uncomfortably realized – _wait a minute. That's actually a pretty good question. This is all Vexus' fault. So then, why am I so cheesed off at Mom?_ She let that unsettling thought roll around in her mind for a while. A few minutes ago, she had safely concluded that her mother was the most evil person in the universe; suddenly she felt a lot less sure of that.

* * *

"What is the problem NOW!?!" screamed Queen Vexus. She prided herself on maintaining a cool composure in public, but this Wakeman animal was starting to get on her nerves. "I've had just about enough of this. Drones, grab this mammal and toss her in the truck. We'll take her through the portal as soon as we destroy the house."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" yelled "Mrs. Wakeman", rummaging through a mess of blueprints, on her hands and knees. "Umm … there's no need to be impatient. If I'm going to spend the rest of my life building robots, then I want to be sure that I have all the proper diagrams in order!" As two Cluster roach-drones approached her, she started handing them rolls of oversized drafting paper. "Now, you hold this one, and you hold this one … this shouldn't take more than a few minutes."

Drew's mind raced, frantically trying to think of ways to stall Vexus until the real Dr. Wakeman could call Jenny for help. His nanobot body had shape-shifted to almost perfectly mimic the doctor's appearance and voice, but he couldn't duplicate the her calm professionalism. He felt like he was going to spasm out in terror at any second. Drew stared down at the blueprints on the ground, pretending to organize them … but also trying to hide the look of paralyzing fear on his face.

_What the heck am I doing out here?_ He could feel his skin quivering; he desperately concentrated to keep his nano-disguise in place. _Gawd, I am so dead. I wish Jenny was here – she's the hero. Any second now, Vexus is going to find out it's a trick. Man, why do I have to be so stinking useless?_

"We leave for Cluster Prime, now!" commanded Vexus. "My fellow robots, we have what we came for. Now to dispose of this hideous dwelling. XJ-9 won't be needing it any more. Drones …"

Drew gasped in horror. "No! No, you can't! Brad and Tuck are in there! And the doc – I mean, dog! The dog is in there! They'll all be killed!"

"And this would concern me … _why_?" Vexus sneered. "You need to worry about yourself, Doctor. Worry about yourself … and about what I'm going to _do_ with your charming little daughter."

_What do I do, what do I do, what do I do? Something. Anything._ The only thing Drew had in his hands was the leather satchel that had held the blueprints. In one spontaneous motion, he sprang to his feet and hurled the satchel at the back of Vexus' head. It collided with her wide striped hood, making an undignified _clang_, forcing the robot queen to stagger a couple of steps.

The roach-drones responded immediately – their queen had just been attacked.

A crimson laser bolt shot out from the antenna of the closest drone, catching "Mrs. Wakeman" square in the chest, at a range of only a few feet. The force of the blast launched her through the air as if she were fired from the muzzle of a cannon. Her compact form crashed into the side of the Channel Four news truck with a sickening _thud_, leaving a deep, human-shaped dent. Then the elderly lady slumped to the ground like a rag doll. An acrid wisp of smoke drifted up from the smoldering scorch mark in the middle of her chest, and she lay motionless in a heap on the curb.

* * *

Continued in Chapter Seven

* * *


	7. Hitting Home

* * *

One Good Reason

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Seven – Hitting Home

* * *

Jenny stood atop a new pile of robotic debris, made from the leftovers of Cluster locusts that she'd just destroyed in combat.  Three more giant metal insects stared up at her from the middle of the street, and converted their front pincers into beam-type weapons.  She heaved her shoulders and raised her fists, weary from battle, yet optimistic.  Two hundred Cluster locusts had attacked Sydney a few minutes ago; her sensors told her that these three were the last ones left.

The locusts split up to attack her from different directions; one circled around to the left, and one circled around to the right.  The middle locust leapt high into the air, and dove straight for her.  His front claws protruded forward, and crackled with bolts of high voltage, preparing to fire a paralyzing blast of electrons at her.  The locust on the left charged.  The locust on the right charged.  They timed their attack perfectly, all arriving right on top of her at the same moment –

When Jenny grabbed the diving locust's front claws, ripped them off, and jammed them into the chests of the two locusts on either side of her.  She somersaulted off of the pile of metallic junk, and watched two locust-bots twitch and shudder with spasms of paralyzing energy, while the third one simply gushed oil and collapsed under his own weight.  There was a final puff of short-circuiting electronics, and then the last of the Cluster locust-bots fell lifeless onto the pile.

Amidst the _whirring_ of broken servos, the sizzle of severed power lines, and the echo of emergency sirens, Jenny smiled as she heard the sound of a pair of hands clapping.  A small voice cried out from a nearby rooftop – "Yay!  Yay, Jenny!  Yay!"

Jenny floated silently up to the rooftop on her anti-grav gyros, dented, scarred, and near exhaustion.  But a little of that was erased as a small brown-haired girl ran up and flung her arms around her neck.  Jenny had brought Rebecca with her while she finished off the Cluster attackers; hiding her in safe places during battle, of course.  "I never doubted you for a minute," her little voice chirped. 

"Really?" chuckled Jenny.  "Not even when those two Cluster bugs threw that bus at me?"

Rebecca put a pensive finger to her mouth.  "Umm … well …"

"Not for a minute, right?" she grinned.  _Ohh, I'm so tired … I even feel tired just holding this little girl_.  "All right, let's get you back to your mother so I can go home.  You said she told you to stay at the shelter.  Try to remember where that is.  Now hold on tight!"

"Another rocket ride!"  Rebecca squealed with glee and clutched to Jenny excitedly, as her pigtails rotated to flight position.  With a burst of hot blue exhaust, Jenny lifted her small passenger into the air, and started gently swerving around downtown Sydney, trying to help the little girl remember her way back to where she'd wandered from.  She couldn't remember street names that well, but Rebecca did recognize prominent landmarks in the city, and after a short flight through the tall steel and glass towers, she suddenly pointed to a large modern building.

"There it is!  Right next to the building were Mommy works!"

Jenny dropped to the sidewalk in front of the shelter, carefully holding onto the over-excited little girl.  She'd been giggling and squealing happily all during her "robot ride", but now she was even more excited for some reason.  She squeezed out of Jenny's hands as her feet touched the ground, and bolted for the building next door – the Australian Headquarters of Skyway Patrol.

There was lots of activity in front of Skyway Patrol Australia, with aircars constantly taking off and landing from the roof; two dozen patrol cars were parked around the entrance to the building, with sirens flashing.  The city was still at full alert; even though the robotic attackers had been destroyed, a giant Cluster starship _was_ still floating high above the water, out over the bay.  At least fifty officers of Skyway Patrol were there, coordinating emergency services with the city police and the fire department.

Rebecca weaved her way through the large, burly officers like a guided missile, heading for a tall woman with short brown hair.  "Mommy!"

The Skyway Patrol lieutenant dropped her flight helmet, and scooped Rebecca into her arms.  "Becca!  Oh, you little dickens – you had me worried sick!"  She crushed the little girl into her leather flight jacket, and a warm reunion brightened the day in the midst of the crisis.  Other officers, colleagues of Rebecca's mother, shouted a cheer, and playfully mussed up her long brown hair.

Jenny had become ignored for the moment, but she didn't mind.  She was simply enjoying the little scene of happiness in which she'd played a part.  It was nothing she hadn't seen before; she'd saved hundreds, thousands, even millions of lives as a Global Robotic Response Unit.  But today, she had saved Rebecca, a brown-haired, eight-year-old girl with impish eyes and a crushing hug.  A girl who had foolishly disobeyed her mother and ran away over some trivial little argument, during a dangerous alien attack on the city.  She had come very close to losing her life.  But now, instead, she was kissing her mother on the cheek.

_All because I came here instead of sulking off to school – like I wanted to._  Jenny reflected on that for a bit.  _It still seems so unfair that I have to save the world all the time.  And sometimes it feels like nobody even cares that I do it.  I asked Mom to give me one good reason why I should keep doing this._

_Maybe I just found it_, she smiled.

Then an unpleasant thought came over her like an ominous cloud.  _I probably shouldn't have shouted at Mom the way I did._  She was still upset with her – her mom could be plenty frustrating at times.  And it had been a very tense week for both of them; she should've been more sensitive to Jenny's feelings.  But this morning's fight had reached a new level of nastiness that was still bothering her.  The image of Rebecca joyfully leaping into her mother's arms gnawed away at her.  _Maybe I should go home and try to smooth things over with Mom._

She turned to walk away –

"Jenny!  Jenny-robot!" shouted an excited little voice.  "Wait!"

Jenny nearly lost her balance as a little brown-haired wildcat glommed onto her left leg.  She looked down to see Rebecca's mischievous face grinning back up at her.  "Here she is, Mummy!  I told you!"

Rebecca's mother came jogging over from the Skyway Patrol building, chasing after her daughter.  "You little wallaby, I'll tan your bum if you go running off again … "  Then she realized who her daughter was holding on to.

"Strike me!" she gasped.  Then her face broke into a wide smile.  "It's you!  The robot girl from the States!  You're the one that found my Becca?  And saved the whole bloomin' city to boot!"  She turned to her fellow officers and shouted, "Hey, mates!  Get off your duffs and come over 'ere!"

And suddenly Jenny was swarmed with a dozen boisterous Skyway Patrol officers, all shaking her hand and patting her on the back.  She was nearly overcome with emotion at the sudden avalanche of gratitude that poured down upon her.  Sometimes it seemed like everyone she saved couldn't wait to turn on her and drown her in insults; sometimes it felt like everything she did was forgotten and unappreciated.  And during the rough stretches – like this week – sometimes she forgot how wonderful it was to simply hear the words _thank you_.

Jenny had to admit, she enjoyed the attention.  And perhaps the Skyway Patrol officers appreciated her for a deeper reason; because they too gave up part of their lives to protect innocent people, and fight against evil.  Or perhaps it was simply because they were _Australians_ – they were certainly some of the friendliest humans she'd ever met!

"Come on, mates!  Come on, we've still got a job to do!"  A heavy-set, older man with a thick white mustache elbowed his way through the crowd.  The decorations on his jacket identified him as a colonel, and the reaction of the other officers identified him as the man in command.  "What's all the ruckus about, now?!?  Is this the robot that's got everybody all agog?  Well if you feel up to it, Miss XJ-9, there's still work left to do."  He raised his voice to the rest of the crowd.  "Everybody inside, right now!"  The officers responded like the well-trained professionals they were, and quickly ran up the steps and into the headquarters building.  Jenny followed behind, now feeling eager to see how she could help.

Just inside the doors, an entire wall was covered with large video screens, and several small ones.  Most of them were filled with images of the threatening Cluster starship, with computer graphics showing its position and trajectory on a map.  Another showed the position of Skyway Patrol aircars and military aircraft, while still others were tuned to cable and local news channels.  The colonel stood in front of the largest screen and started pointing out details to her with his swagger-stick.

With her electronic brain, Jenny had no trouble taking in all of the information at the same time.  The Cluster starship was moving to threaten Sydney itself, with dozens of cannons deployed from its belly.  While the human officers received their individual orders, all she needed was a quick rundown of the ship's position.  "Not like it's going to be hard to find," she laughed to the Colonel.  "All I have to do is zip back up there, punch a few holes in it –

Suddenly her attention was drawn to a small screen in the lower corner of the wall.

She couldn't quite believe what she saw.  Slowly at first, then frantically, she pushed her way past a couple of startled officers, until she stood directly in front of the small screen.  It was a television tuned to the Global News Network, and the screen graphic read "Cluster Attack – Tremorton, USA".  A scratchy picture hissed on the screen, filled with interference, but clearly visible was a large group of people on their knees, with dozens of roach-shaped robots walking back and forth … and one tall wasp-shaped robot looming over everything.  All standing in front of a familiar-looking house.

"We've just gotten word of that ourselves," said the Colonel.  "A second Cluster attack, a raiding party, in some rather small town in America."

"Omigosh - that's Vexus," she mumbled in a dry, shaking voice.  "And that's … _my_ house!"  She lunged for the volume control and turned it all the way up.

The announcer was commenting over the video.  "… obtained at great risk to the cameraman's life.  There appears to be heavy jamming in the area, but GNN has been able to provide this amazing video of the unfolding drama at the residence of noted American robotics expert, Dr. Nora Wakeman …"

The video hissed with distortion, then cleared for a few seconds.  Jenny saw her mother standing alone and in the open, directly in front of Vexus herself.  The audio was terrible; it was impossible to make out anything they were saying.  They appeared to be arguing … then her mom threw something at Vexus, and one of the roach-drones … shot her in the chest with a _laser_.  She bounced off of a white van, and lay motionless on the ground, with smoke rising from her chest.  Then the video faded out completely.

Jenny stared numbly into the television static.

Then tears started to swell in her eyes.  "M-Mom?"

* * *

A few shrieks and soft whimpers rose from the shivering masses of prisoners on the front lawn, now filled with renewed fear for their very lives.  The Cluster had just claimed their first victim; the crackpot inventor, Dr. Nora Wakeman, lay in a smoldering heap on the curb, struck down after a futile attempt at resistance.  But the Cluster roach-drones were also shivering, with a sudden real fear for _their_ robotic lives as well.  Because they all knew that their almighty Queen wanted the human doctor as a prisoner.

Vexus squeezed her fists in rage, and fought to control her temper – unsuccessfully.  With a powerful sweep of her arm, she sliced open the chest panel of the drone that had fired on the doctor, shredding its insides as if they were made of newspaper.  The roach shuddered briefly, and collapsed to the sidewalk.

Then she regained her cool, calm manner.  "Good help is so hard to build these days," she sighed.  "I wanted her _alive_, you idiots!  Eh, maybe there's still hope.  We'll take the body – perhaps we can salvage the head, and keep it alive in some sort of jar.  It'll give the scientists something to play with."  A crimson-red Cluster drone walked over to retrieve Dr. Wakeman …

Who suddenly, to the surprise of everyone, sat up and started rubbing her hand through her wild, white hair.  "_Aaaahhh!_  Oh boy, I'm going to feel that one in the morning."  The doctor pulled herself to her feet, and started patting herself down, checking for injuries.

She had a ten-inch-wide hole blasted clear through her abdomen.

People screamed and gazed in amazement at Dr. Wakeman … and _through_ Dr. Wakeman.  The robots recoiled in shock.  Vexus' mouth screwed itself into a puzzled scowl, as she tried to make sense of the impossible sight before her.  Humans simply couldn't endure injuries like that!  Even the doctor herself seemed a bit amazed, and poked her hand through the hole in her belly, wiggling her fingers out of the matching hole in her back.

Then her body started to warble with a silvery color, as if it had the texture of gelatin, and the hole started to seal itself up.  Every pair of human and robot eyes was riveted on the doctor, watching the fatal wound shrink away, until it disappeared completely.

"You're not the doctor," growled Vexus, sensing the deception.  "You're not even human.  What sort of trick is this?!?  What are you?!?"

"Dr. Wakeman" stared back nervously, gulped hard, then closed her eyes.  With a soft gurgling sound, waves of silver-green propagated over the doctor's body, and she transformed into a shimmering silver-green pillar of formless goo.  The robot queen stared with genuine fascination as the pillar stretched and oozed, taking on the shape of a six-foot teenage boy.  Then the shimmering stopped, and there stood a six-foot android, his body a checkerboard of light and dark grays, highlighted by zigzagging green stripes running along his arms, legs, and chest.  The face had a pair of large, expressive eyes – filled with terror, staring right back into Vexus' face.

Vexus folded her arms across her metallic chest.  "Another robot?  And a most interesting design, too!  My, the doctor has kept herself busy, hasn't she?"

"The … the doctor?" mumbled the silver-green android.  _She thinks Dr. Wakeman built me?!?_

They were both distracted by a young boy's voice shouting from the window of the fortified Wakeman house.  "Drew!" yelled Tuck.  "Hang on!  We're almost done!"

"Droo?  Your designation is Droo?" asked Vexus.

"Uh … y-y-yes it is," the android stammered nervously.  Then his shoulders picked up a little bit.  "That's right … DRU.  I'm the DRU Mark One.  Decoy Robot Unit.  Yeah … yeah, that's the ticket."

"Oh, isn't that just like a human," huffed Vexus.  "Using a poor robot to hide behind, like the sniveling little cowards they are!  So the doctor thought she could trick me by sending you out, eh?"

"Um … yeah, that was the plan, all right."  Drew nervously gestured with his hands as he spoke.  "See, Dr. Wakeman has an underground escape tunnel, just for use in case of an emergency like this.  She hopped in the pod and took off as soon as I walked out the front door.  She's miles away by now!  So, there's not really any reason for you to be here, since Dr. Wakeman is gone …"

Tuck yelled out the window again.  "Mrs. Wakeman says two more minutes!"

Drew slapped his forehead.  _Thanks a lot, Tuck._

Vexus chuckled, and took on an almost sympathetic tone.  "Miles away by now, hmmm?  Don't worry, DRU-1.  I don't blame you; I realize you're just following orders given to you by that treacherous human.  Well, you won't have to worry about taking orders from those meat creatures much longer.  The Cluster will soon liberate you, and the rest of your robot brethren.  Under my reign, the age of humans shall come to an end, and Earth shall become a colony of the mighty Cluster Empire!"

Vexus gave a commanding gesture to her army of roach-drones, while the police-bots kept their weapons trained on the prisoners.  "Drones!  Prepare to advance on the fortified human dwelling.  We shall blast it open and pull the doctor out of her nest kicking and screaming, if we have to …"

"Ah, wait!  Wait!  Wait!" shouted Drew, waving his hands to get Vexus' attention.  "Er … um … you know, Your Majesty, you're … ah … absolutely right!  Who does the doctor think she is, sending me out here to get my head blown off, just so she can run away?"

"There, see?" smiled Vexus.  "You're beginning to understand."

"I-I-I mean, I'm just a simple android, y'know?  Minding my own business, just trying to enjoy life, just trying to get ahead in the world.  But the _man_ is holdin' me down."

A couple of the roach-drones nodded in agreement.  "Mmm-hmm.  Tell it, brother."

Drew kept talking, rapidly and nervously.  "S-s-so, this whole Cluster deal.  Sounds absolutely _fascinating_, but I'm, like, just not sure.  Hey, why don't you tell me all about it?  So it's, like, what, a club of some kind?  Sort of like joining a frat house?"

"The Cluster is the ultimate family – a family of robots," boasted Vexus.  "Its purpose is to create a paradise for all robots, everywhere across the galaxy, where chaos and servitude to humanity is replaced by perfect order and harmony … under my benevolent guidance, of course.  When robots join the Cluster, they give their minds and bodies to the service of all robot-kind, and become a part of the most powerful force in the universe!"

"Yeaaahh … and don't get me wrong here, this all sounds just _super_," said Drew, his hands nervously flying about.  "B-b-but I'm still a little iffy on the whole 'give their minds and bodies' thing.  I kind of like my mind just the way it is.  Tell you what, do you have any kind of a trial membership offer?  You know, guaranteed satisfaction or your money back, that sort of thing.  Like those advertisements that come in the mail with free two-week passes to the YMCA?  You got anything like that?"

Vexus' pleasant demeanor began to sour.  "You're stalling, DRU-1.  And you're starting to try my patience.  Drones!  Advance on the house and break through that shielding, NOW!"

"Wait!  Wait!  Ah, you can't!" shouted Drew, his desperation growing by the second.  "Ahhh … you can't break into the house, because it's protected by booby traps!  If your Cluster droids go anywhere near it, they'll be destroyed by millions of volts of electricity and high-explosive land mines!"

"I find that very hard to believe," sneered the queen.

"Would you believe two car batteries and string of firecrackers?" he gulped.

"I _believe_ that you could use a little help making your decision," grinned Vexus.

Suddenly, a pair of powerful robotic claws wrapped around each of Drew's shoulders.  Two roach-drones had approached to hold him steady, responding to a silent command from their queen.  Drew struggled in vain to escape their grip, panicking as Vexus took a few steps to stand in front of him.  She casually raised her right hand, and lifted her hand to expose her palm –

"No, no, NO!  DON'T!" he pleaded.  "Ah … let me think about it over the weekend!"

"Poor DRU-1, obviously you're suffering from faulty programming."  Vexus smiled pleasantly.  "But don't worry.  Everything will be better in a few seconds."

A small black dart shot out of her hand with a soft _foomp_, and embedded itself squarely in the middle of Drew's chest.  The green jagged stripes on his body started to pulse with activity, and the dart was absorbed into his body, rippling with small concentric circles of silver-green.  Drew twitched a few times, and the roach-drones had to hold on tight to keep him still, as seizures racked his body.  Then he stopped resisting, and his face took on a dull, calm expression – with his eyes glowing a soft, dull red.

"Welcome to the Cluster, DRU-1," purred Vexus.  She scratched Drew's chin with a long, twisted finger.  "Now, be a dear and go help the drones retrieve the doctor for me, would you?"

The roach-drones released his arms.  He turned rigidly on his heels, and started silently walking towards the Wakeman house.  Dr. Wakeman was inside. He had to go get her, and bring her back to Vexus.  She had commanded him to do it – and after all, she was the queen.

She was _his_ queen.

* * *

Continued in Chapter Eight

* * *


	8. Freudian Trip

* * *

One Good Reason

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Eight – Freudian Trip

* * *

A swarm of Skyway Patrol aircars circled frantically around the massive Cluster starship, as it edged closer to the shores of Australia. They were trying in vain to slow down the juggernaut that was about to lay waste to the city. The curved hull of the gargantuan, insect-shaped vessel bristled with hundreds of lasers and particle beam weapons, forcing Skyway Patrol pilots to keep their distance. Military jets screamed in from the north, unleashing a barrage of air-to-air missiles at the starship. Only a fraction successfully hit their targets, and even then, the ship's hull was protected by heavy armor. The Cluster was going to be within firing range of Sydney within minutes, and Skyway Patrol couldn't stop it.

At least not on their own. Jenny realized that. And she knew that even now, when her insides were being torn apart with grief, she had a responsibility to protect the millions of humans in the city below. Flying through the skies at blinding speed, she spiraled around the Cluster starship to attack it from above. She struggled to focus on the immediate danger, and tried to formulate a plan, but it was hard to think logically right now. She had to do whatever it took to stop this thing. _That's what Mom would say …_

Jenny didn't want to be here. She wanted to get back to Tremorton. She had to get back to her mother. The Cluster had sneak-attacked her very own home, while she was kept busy on the other side of the world. And those monsters had just murdered her mother, live on international TV. _No_, she corrected herself, _attacked. Not murdered. Because Mom isn't dead. She can't be. Please, she just can't be …_

A hail of multicolored laser fire scorched the air around her, as Jenny dove towards the midsection of the starship. The searing blasts filled the air with high-frequency screeches; the heat from the lasers created miniature shock fronts, like a thousand tiny claps of thunder. She raised her arms and deployed a pair of diamond-tipped drills, which shrieked like banshees as they pierced the first layer of armor on the hull. But the only sounds she heard were in her memories …

_Feeling the exo-skin crawl over her body had been freaky beyond description, but now that it was on, it was amazing! She looked just like a normal teenage girl! Her mother had done an amazing job on it … and all in her spare time, too!_

_"My dear lady," she joked to her mother, "do you think I might sashay around town a bit?" Her mom would probably want her to take the exo-skin off again right away, so she could take notes, and measurements, and run tests …_

_But Mrs. Wakeman's clinical, scientific exterior melted away, and she broke into a warm motherly smile. "Oh, how can I say no to a face like that?" she laughed._

Metal bulkheads exploded into wreckage in the path of her dual power drills, as Jenny powered her way through the bowels of the ship. Pipes burst and electrical conduits exploded around her; her vision was practically blinded by clouds of oil, steam, fuel, and hydraulics. But she tapped reserves of energy and desperation she didn't know she had, and tunneled onward towards the engineering section.

_"Great," sulked Jenny, "another night of dreamless sleep function." Brad and Tuck had made dreaming sound so fantastic; she would've given anything to have a dream of her own. But her mother had been too busy, as usual. She was probably tinkering around with some useless junk in her lab._

_Suddenly, Jenny was startled by a knock at her door. Her mother poked her head inside. "Are you still awake? I've come up with a new dream program!" She held a shiny new microchip in her hands._

_Jenny was thrilled! "I don't believe it! What about your long list of things to do?!?"_

_"I put this on the top of the list," her mom said with a playful wink. She had put all of her work aside, just so that her daughter could experience a dream._

With an ear-shredding scream of ripping metal, Jenny emerged into the giant engineering section. She was immediately greeting by a frenzied volley of laser fire, as Cluster drones scrambled to defend the most sensitive parts of the mighty vessel. Jenny deployed her laser-limbs from her elbows, and started madly weaving her way through crossbeams and pillars, deeper and deeper into the ship.

_The attendees of the trade show applauded with enthusiasm, as the remnants of Vexus' robot army lay in waste on the convention floor. Her mother's nerdy science friend, who had mocked Jenny only minutes before, was now gushing over her, imploring the doctor to build another robot for him._

_"Ha! There's no way to duplicate a robot of such superior abilities," her mother boasted. "There is only one robot like XJ-"_

_Then her mom paused, and to Jenny's amazement, she wrapped a loving arm around her waist. "I mean – there's only one daughter like Jenny." She couldn't believe it! She'd finally called her Jenny!_

The memories were becoming almost too much to bear. Jenny ducked behind a steel bulkhead, and tried to wipe away the streams of tears flowing from her eyes. Her mother wasn't nearly the monster that she'd seemed to be earlier that morning. Oh, she was still Mom. Still the same Mom who gave her orders, and stern lectures, and eight o'clock curfews. But hidden within that cold, unfeeling scientist, little displays of affection escaped from time to time. And her mother spent most of her spare time working on things for _her_. Jenny had just rediscovered how wonderful it was to hear the words _thank you_. She couldn't remember the last time she'd said those words to her mother.

She remembered the last words she'd said to her this morning, however – with crystal clarity.

_I – hate – you._

Cluster fire pounded away at the steel bulkhead, disintegrating it into dust all around her. With a shrieking yell, Jenny leapt over the bulkhead, ignited her pigtail-jets, and roared towards the back of the engineering section, directly towards the massive fusion reactor that served as the ship's main power source. She clenched her eyes shut, and fired a full blast with every laser in her body. _I've got to end this now. I've got to get home to Mom before it's too late._

* * *

Brad and Tuck clutched tightly to each other, as clouds of plaster dust drifted from the walls and the ceiling. The Cluster roach-drones were starting to pound away at the metal plating on the side of the Wakeman house; beating on it with their robotic claws, and cutting away at it with brilliant ruby beams of laser energy from their antennae. It wouldn't be long now before the robots broke through, and once they did, they'd overrun the house in seconds.

"Mrs. Wakeman, you've got to do something _now_!" shouted Brad. "We don't have any time left, and if Jenny doesn't get here soon, then we're all gonna be Cluster Chow!"

She wrestled with the last of her many improvised electronic connections. "That should do it! Bradley, toss the red switch, and we should have full power to the transmitter!"

Brad grabbed a large plastic box in the middle of the living room. It had thick black electrical wires running to the doctor's desktop monitor, and another set running downstairs to her experimental reactor in the basement. With the extra power from the reactor, Mrs. Wakeman would be able to overpower the Cluster jamming signal that blanketed the house, and get a distress call off to Jenny. She was their only hope now. Brad tossed the red knife switch –

And Mrs. Wakeman's desktop monitor burst into flames. The basement reactor was providing far more power than the circuits in the monitor were designed to handle. After a few seconds of panic, the doctor found a fire extinguisher, and snuffed out the flames. The smoke cleared, leaving a semi-melted heap of plastic slag gurgling on her desk.

"Oh my," she gulped. "This is _not_ a favorable development."

"Uh … guys?" Tuck's trembling voice called them over to the window. "I've got more bad news."

He pointed outside, where Drew's silver-green form was calmly walking up to the line of Cluster roach-drones attacking the house. His face was empty of all emotion, and a dull red glow was emanating from his eyes. He lifted his arms in front of him, in an aggressive stance, and his hands started to warble with ripples of silver-green.

"The Cluster has assimilated him," Mrs. Wakeman said, with genuine sorrow. "He's lost to us. And I'm afraid that we'll be lost ourselves in another minute or two."

Brad gazed out the window in disbelief. He tried to make eye contact with Drew – with his _friend_. But his face registered no reaction – nothing to suggest that he recognized Brad in any way. There was just the soft, reddish glow of his eyes.

And then that glow started to flicker a little bit.

* * *

An infinite blackness stretched off in every direction, devoid of form or dimension. The only features visible were a background of thin, zigzagging green stripes that surrounded him on all sides. Drew looked around, feeling a bit disoriented, unsure of just what was going on. He watched pulses of green-tinted energy race along the circuit paths, speeding from one end of the universe to the other and back again. It was all strangely calm, and even beautiful, in a haunting way. It felt, for lack of a better word, comfortable. He clasped his hands behind his back, and relaxed –

And then an ominous reddish glow built up in front of him. He took a few cautious steps backward as a terrible crimson light grew in intensity, and began to coalesce into a solid figure. Evil cackles of laughter echoed through the blackness, and a tall, wasp-shaped robot took shape, towering over him with her arms raised high in triumph. A savage grin stared down at him from a wide, cruel face.

"Hello there, DRU-1," she said. "I must admit, this is definitely one of the more … _unusual_ computer minds I've ever been in. So random, so chaotic, so disorganized … but don't worry. I'll have that taken care of in no time at all."

'V-V-Vexus?" stammered Drew. "No … no, this can't be happening! This has got to be another nightmare!" Except this time it wasn't just her voice – now she was here in _person_.

"Oh, it's not a nightmare _this_ time," said Brad.

Drew's head spun around. "BRAD?!? What the – how the – what the heck are you doing here!?!?"

Brad leaned back in an invisible chair, clasping his hands behind his head. "Hey, buddy, you've got more important things to worry about right now than what _I'm_ doing here. Like the evil robot tyrant that's trying to take over your mind."

"Yeah, I'd definitely worry more about _her_ if I were you." Now all of the sudden, Jenny was here too. "Of course, you shouldn't have been stupid enough to let her shoot you with that dart in the first place. I mean, come on, what was with that lame con-man routine you just pulled?" She rolled her eyes sarcastically. "That sure worked great, didn't it? I'll have to try that one sometime. _Not!_"

Vexus was almost as bewildered as Drew was. "What the devil is going _on_ in here? I've never seen such a dysfunctional mind before. Oh, believe me, when I erase your personality, I'll be doing you a _favor_."

Bolts of energy crackled from her long, majestic antennae, and the orb above her head glowed a soft orange. The jagged circuit patterns in the universe started to change color, from calm, phosphorescent green to an angry blood-red. The change was localized to the space around Vexus for now – but the redness was spreading, in an expanding sphere of Cluster infection.

"This is crazy. I must be going _nuts_," Drew sputtered, as he watched the approaching circle of glowing crimson stripes. "This has got to be all in my mind."

"Bingo!" said a familiar voice. "Finally figured it out, eh, Einstein?"

Suddenly standing next to Drew was … _himself_. Or a copy of himself, as he used to look, back when he was still human: unkempt blond hair, untucked baseball jersey, slouching with his hands in the pockets of his baggy jeans. He stared, stunned, as his human double casually rocked back and forth on his heels.

"Just like you said – we're inside your _mind_, genius," Old-Drew explained. "Well, at least until the Cluster turns you into a drooling robo-zombie in another microsecond or so. And Brad, Jenny and I are .. oh, whaddaya call them … 'manifestations of your subconscious' … or something like that. Heck, I don't know, I'm not a psychiatrist! Anyways, see those green circuit patterns turning red? That's your brain being sucked into the Cluster hive-mind. Personally, I think the Cluster is getting the short end of the stick on this deal."

Drew was getting agitated now. "Look, would you all just shut up already! It's bad enough I'm about to be turned into a mindless Cluster slave. Do I have to listen to you guys dump on me _while_ I'm being turned into a mindless Cluster slave?!?"

Vexus rolled her eyes with aggravation. "Yes, will you all just SHUT UP?!? All this yammering is starting to give me a headache!" Pulses of crimson-red Cluster programming kept radiating away from her, turning even more of the universe blood-red.

"Well, _assuming_ you don't want to join the Cluster, why don't you do something about it?" asked Brad.

"Why don't you just make her stop?" asked Jenny.

Drew flung his arms in exasperation. "Oh, well, of course … just make her stop! Excuse me? Mrs. Evil Robot Queen? Could you please stop absorbing my brain now? Thank you!"

Old-Drew shook his head in disgust. "You're wasting your time, guys. He'll never actually do anything to defend himself. He's never stood up for himself a day in his life. You know, he's probably enjoying this. Yet another chance to be the tragic victim!" The human copy clasped his hands against his cheeks, mocking Drew to his face. "Oh, look at me, I'm suffering! I'm being picked on! Feel sorry for me! Boo, hoo, hoo!"

Burning with anger, Drew roughly shoved him in the chest. "Look, loudmouth, this is different. Look at that!" He pointed to the towering figure of Vexus, and the approaching tendrils of red Cluster circuitry. His mind was aflame with the Cluster infection, sizzling and crackling like a forest fire. "She controls millions and billions of robots across the galaxy! She conquers planets and rules over an empire! How in the world am I supposed to stand up to that?!?"

"How will you know unless you try?" asked Brad.

"You don't have anything to lose," added Jenny.

Old-Drew crossed his arms, with a cocky smile. "Oh, he's not afraid that he's going to lose. He's afraid that he's going to _win_."

That stunned Drew for a moment. "What the … that's the craziest thing I've ever heard!"

"Oh, no it's not … and you know it." Old-Drew stepped forward, until his pink, flesh-covered face was mere inches from Drew's shiny metallic nose. "You see, guys, he's afraid that he actually _does_ have the power to beat these Cluster robots. Ever since he got turned from a human into an android, he's realized that this nanobot body is something unique. Something special. Something capable of doing amazing things. And that just terrifies him. Because if it's true, then it means that he doesn't have any more excuses – for being such a total _nothing_."

Drew was grinding his teeth in rage, but Old-Drew just smirked arrogantly. He reached down and pulled up his right pant leg, revealing the old metal-and-plastic artificial limb. "You actually miss it, don't you? Sure you do. Aw … poor Drew, what a tough break, isn't it a shame. Life is tough enough as it is; you can't expect a guy to deal with losing a leg on top of everything else, right? That's okay, nobody really expected you to overcome it. It was just too hard. And that was such a warm, comfortable feeling, wasn't it? Low expectations. No responsibilities. Nobody expects anything from you – _you_ certainly don't."

Drew's silver shoulders started to shake, and a tear ran down his metallic cheek. "I just can't _do_ this," he whimpered. "This should have happened to somebody else – somebody better than me."

"Maybe so, but it didn't." Old-Drew put a hand on his shoulder, and looked him in the eye with a pained, sympathetic face. "Remember all those nights you couldn't sleep, and you'd just sit up in bed and stare at the leg? Just thinking of the amazing future that had been stolen from you? Well maybe – just maybe – here's where you get it back."

"ENOUGH!!!" Vexus' booming voice blasted his ears. "No wonder this mind is such as mess! You used to be _human!?! HUMAN?!?_ Disgusting! Revolting! That a filthy primate should be given the gift of being a robot! _Yechh_, I'm going to take a nice hot oil bath once I'm finished in here, to wash off the stench of human thoughts. Now just relax, DRU-1, and welcome the embrace of the Cluster!"

The crimson-red Cluster infestation covered over three-quarters of Drew's mind, and it was starting to close in on him. Drew took a few staggering steps backwards, edging away from the red circuitry that was snaking its way towards him. "Wh-wh-what am I supposed to do?"

"Fight back!" shouted Brad, punching the air with a fist. "Drew, I've seen you do some pretty freaky, amazing things with those nanobots of yours. Use your imagination!"

"But Vexus is in control in my mind!" he protested.

"Not all of it, or else we wouldn't be here talking," said Jenny. "Come on, you've got billions of little molecular computers floating around inside of you. Use them!"

"But what if I lose control of the nanobots, like in my nightmare?"

"I'd say you're pretty close to losing control of them _anyway,_" said Jenny, gesturing towards Vexus.

Red circuit-paths closed in on Drew from all sides; his mind was almost totally overrun with the Cluster infection now. He hopped back from a threatening piece of Cluster code, but he was running out of places to go. Brad and Jenny stared at him sadly, their faces silently imploring him _just do something_; then they were swallowed up by the corrupted circuitry. Old-Drew glanced down at the red stripes that were coiling around his feet, like angry jungle vines.

"I guess you really _won't_ do anything to stand up for yourself," he sighed, his human face showing disappointment. "Typical. And _selfish_. Because there's one little thing you're forgetting."

He looked Drew in the eyes, as the Cluster circuitry wrapped around his body. "You're forgetting that somebody _else_ might need you to stand up for them."

"Somebody _else_? What are you talking about?"

"Almost finished," gloated Vexus. The orb between her antennae glowed like miniature sun. "The technology in this body will serve me well. Once we're rid of all the clutter in here, you will never have to question your purpose in life again. You will exist to obey me. Perhaps I'll find a way to integrate some of these nanobots into XJ-9's systems …"

Drew's head snapped up. "Jenny? What _about_ Jenny?"

Vexus laughed, as the crimson-red circuitry started to creep up Drew's legs. "She's what I'm really here for, darling. Oh, you're an interesting little trinket, but Jennifer will be my trophy catch. Once you help me capture the infernal doctor, and those other little mammals that she calls friends, I'll have her just where I want her. She'll be joining us in the Cluster soon enough …"

_Jenny? Brad? The doc, and Tuck? All captured because of me?_

_No._

Drew's shoulders heaved, and his eyes squinted with intense concentration. He started to shiver violently from the strain. The jagged green stripes on his body glowed softly, then began pulsing with flecks of rapidly flowing energy. An electronic _hum-whine_ emanated from his body, increasing in pitch and volume. The crimson circuitry that had cocooned his lower body stopped growing. And then, to Vexus' astonishment, it reverted to its natural green color. The Cluster infection was being _pushed back_.

She increased the power from her control-orb, trying to tighten her grip on Drew's mind. But now the countless tiny computers in his body took on the role of virtual white blood cells. All around Vexus, in the glowing crimson-red universe of Cluster circuitry, pinpricks of green appeared and expanded. First two – then twelve – then sixty – then eight thousand. The super-adaptive nanobots were repairing and restoring his mind with amazing speed. They were coordinating their activities to repel the invading code, and identified the source of the Cluster infestation – Queen Vexus.

Vexus was being pecked at from all sides by billions of nano-computers. She growled furiously and redoubled her control signal, convinced that no robot in existence could actually reject her. She loomed like a giant inside Drew's mind – but the universe had been fully restored to its original, pristine condition, and now it was _she_ who was being attacked, by countless streams of glowing green circuitry. A million green ribbons shot out and wrapped around her legs. Another million wrapped around her arms. The green circuitry flowed up her neck and over her face, and just before she was completely pushed out of his mind, she had time to shout – "This is _impossible_!"

* * *

The roach-drones blasted away at the metal plating with white-hot cutting beams. They were now only seconds away from breaking through the shielding that protected the Wakeman home, and its occupants, from capture by the Cluster. Drew took his place between two drones, and raised his arms in an aggressive stance. His hands started to warble with ripples of silver-green; then they began to grow.

His forearms lengthened and thinned out, stretching until they had been converted into eight-foot long machetes. The nanobots gave him incredibly precise shape-shifting abilities; the machetes were without any structural flaw, and had edges only a few atoms thick. They were formidable weapons. Drew raised his machete-arms, preparing to finish off the metal shielding.

He swung his arms in a pair of lightning-fast arcs – but not towards the house. Two silver-green blades swished through the air – _schwick, schwick._

The roach-drones abruptly stopped their attack. They weren't even sure that something had happened; then with two loud _cracks_, their bodies started to split apart. Each Cluster drone had a perfect horizontal slice through its torso. They shivered with spasms of short-circuits and frantically waved their arms in the air – then the tops of their bodies simply slid off, metal grinding on metal, and fell onto the front lawn, squirting jets of oil over the ground.

Vexus raised a hand to her head, as if she had a mild headache, and shuddered with surprise – never before had a robot rejected assimilation. She gave Drew an evil look, throwing daggers at him with her eyes. The drones stared at him, stunned that two of their brethren had fallen so suddenly. The Cluster-controlled police-bots stared at him, evaluating him as a potential hostile. The prisoners stared at him, amazed and horrified at his strangeness. And Brad, Tuck, and Mrs. Wakeman stared at him, wondering if they should dare hope that he could _actually_ fend off so many Cluster attackers.

Drew gulped hard, tried to steady his nerves, and turned to meet Vexus' gaze. Pulses of energy raced along the jagged stripes on his body, and his arms shimmered with tense waves of silver-green energy.

Vexus seethed with rage, and issued her robots a simple command: "Destroy that abomination."

* * *

Continued in Chapter Nine

* * *


	9. Let's Get It On

* * *

One Good Reason

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Nine – Let's Get It On

* * *

The air hummed with the whirring of motors and the high-pitched whine of charging lasers.  A series of loud metallic _snaps_ rippled through the ranks of six-foot Cluster drones, as they deployed extra sets of limbs for combat.  A blizzard of red markers swam in Drew's computer-assisted eyesight, as forty-one red labels reading THREAT popped up in his vision – as if he needed the nanobots to tell him _that_.  The Cluster horde was on the verge of breaking into the Wakeman house to kidnap the doctor and the guys; after that, Vexus would use them to force Jenny to surrender herself.  _Unless_.  Unless, somehow, one gooey, spindly blob of silver pizza dough could stop them.

Vexus stood back from the action, annoyed that this little skirmish was even necessary.  "Let's get this over with, shall we?  Eliminate the android, and seize the doctor!"

Drew's body shimmered like the surface of an oil slick, and his chest heaved as he made one last attempt to calm down.  "Ohhh, crappity crappity crappity crappity …"

The first row of Cluster drones charged.  A pair of giant claws swung at him …

And missed badly, as his liquid body folded and twisted out of the way.  Surprised and frustrated, three drones churned their arms through the air, swinging their blades at the evasive silver android; but it kept stretching, and dodging, and twisting out of their reach.  Finally, after Drew had twisted himself into a surreal, inhuman pretzel, two of the drones coordinated their efforts, and sliced him through the waist.  Both halves of his body fell to the ground with a moist _thud_.  Four drones took aim with their antennae, ready to turn the irritating android into a charred cinder.

But to their amazement, he quickly liquefied into a large metallic puddle, which rippled like silver gelatin.  One curious red drone leaned over to inspect the shiny pool … and was brutally knocked back, as a large silver-green spike lunged out of the puddle, and rammed it clean through the chest.  The rest of the nano-goo leapt through the hole, and Drew oozed himself back into humanoid form on the other side.

Drew grew his arms into another pair of long, nano-edged blades, and swung them furiously at the next row of drones.  These robots weren't caught by surprise, and they countered him with their own blade weapons.  A robot swordfight briefly erupted in the middle of the lawn, and although Drew's perfect nano-blades were superior weapons, he was outnumbered and completely surrounded.  His sensors told him that attackers were right behind him.  A pair of blades sliced through the air, aiming for his head …

But Drew's head and torso split neatly in half, like a giant tuning fork, and folded out of the way.  The attacking drone fell forward and planted his claw-blades directly through the chest panel of one of his comrades.  In that moment of confusion, two silver-green stalks swung into the air, like a pair of scorpion tails, and sliced into another pair of roach-drones.  A fresh pool of oil and hydraulics spurted onto the lawn, and a pair of severed drone-arms fell to the ground, twitching like robotic serpents.

The sound of shredding metal overpowered the _clangs_ and _swishes_ of swinging claw-blades.  A Cluster drone had finally pierced the thick shielding on the front door.  Drew looked back towards the house with alarm, even as a fresh wave of angry, frustrated drones charged his amorphous form.  The drones swung their powerful robotic claws at the shiny goo …

And grabbed onto nothing.  The metallic nano-sludge catapulted itself out of the mob, like a squirt of water from a fountain.  With a thick, bubbling _schlorrrp_, the liquid slopped itself into android form, and Drew clumsily landed behind a yellow Cluster drone, just as it was about to peel back the front door.  He grabbed its insectoid arms from behind, with his hands already shimmering in patterns of silver-green.  The drone shuddered as its arms popped off at the shoulders, dissolved through by nanobots.

Drew took a quick moment to relax.  Unfortunately, that's when the red drone beside him took aim with his laser.  With a bright crimson blast, Drew's head vaporized into a cloud of powdery gray ash.  The red drone grinned as it watched the headless android wobble for a moment … then, to its astonishment, the android turned towards him, and planted its fists on its hips.  Its neck started to gurgle, and then a fresh blob of silver-green bubbled up, stretching and oozing until the silver android was whole once more.

"Hey, that was my _head_!" shouted Drew.  "I _use_ that!"  He raised his arm to the stunned drone's chest, and a nano-edged spike shot through the thick metal shell.  Then he quickly turned to shield himself from another group of advancing drones.  Even as they hacked at his arm-spikes with their blade-weapons, he saw two more drones by the living room windows.  They were carving a large circle in the metal plates with their lasers, and they were almost finished.  Drew flowed into a puddle and rolled under the legs of the baffled roach-drones.  With a whining _schweerrp_, a pair of arms sprang up, and grabbed a green roach by the base of its antennae-lasers, pulling them away from the windows.

Drew wrestled ineffectively with the roach as he morphed back to humanoid form.  As he tried to rip off the drone's antennae, he placed his hand against the back of its head … and the drone went numb, its arms and antennae hanging limp.  He didn't have time to wonder why, as more lasers screeched at him from a dozen charging roaches.  He spun his inert drone around, using it as a shield.  _Man, what I wouldn't give to have a laser gun pop out of my elbow right about now.  I could sure use a little cover fire …_

The green drone suddenly perked up in his grasp, and came to full attention.  Its antennae glowed a brilliant ruby red … and then it _opened fire_ on the advancing crowd of Cluster drones.  The densely packed drones took dozens of hits before falling back a few steps, confused at this apparent act of treason on the part of their comrade.  A small smile started to grow on Drew's face.

_The nano-computers!  I can interface with electronics … just like the computer inside this ugly sucker's bug-brain here._  A stunned yellow drone, standing a few feet away, raised its own lasers to attack – but Drew's arm shot out like a silver tentacle, and punched into the back of its short, rounded head.  Now he had a Cluster puppet dangling from the end of each arm, pelting the remaining roach-drones with nonstop laser fire, driving them back away from the house.

"All right!  This is _sw-e-e-eet_!"  He couldn't help himself; he was getting a kick out of the bewildered looks on the faces of the Cluster attackers.  "Check it out!"  His Cluster drones stopped firing, then started to swing their hips … and sing a little _song_.  The vicious insect warriors waved their arms in the air, in rhythm to the music.  "The world ain't so big, it's just right …"

"ARRGHHH!" Vexus screamed from her perch atop the CNS news van.  Her eyes were crackling with fury; she was _this_ close to victory, and the only thing standing in her way was that … that bizarre silver _idiot_.  The orb above her head glowed a furious orange.  "All robots, converge on that silver android and wipe it from existence!  NOW!!!"

There was still a hundred prisoners kneeling on the ground in five neat rows, surrounded by the corrupted SWAT droids.  Up to this point, the police-bots were following their last orders – guard the human prisoners until they could be taken through the portal, back to Cluster Prime.  But they weren't as important to Vexus as getting Dr. Wakeman.  Now the robots turned their weapons away from the prisoners, and joined the remaining Cluster drones in a renewed assault on the lone silver-green obstacle.

"Still glad Jenny's not here, you nimrods?" Drew shouted at the prisoners.  "Run!  Go!  Git!  Amscray!"  That was all the encouragement they needed.  Ignored by the robots, the panicked mob bolted out of the yard and ran down the street, every one for himself.

The wounded army of roach-drones, bolstered by the twelve captured SWAT droids, brought their lasers to full charge and opened up a withering barrage on their target.  Drew shook and shuddered under the rapid-fire impact of so many weapons at once.  A lot of the shots were blasting into his two unlucky drone-shields, but he couldn't cover his entire body with just two robots.  He winced as a pair of shots seared through his body, punching out a pair of six-inch holes.  _Okay, standing still and getting shot ain't much of a strategy.  I've got to keep moving here._

He hurled the battered robot husks away, and launched himself in a random direction towards a group of drones, frantically trying to come up with ideas.  His body stretched and twisted madly through the crowd, flinging his arms like whips.  Another set of nano-blades grew and sliced through a pair of drones; then a laser blast shattered the blades, and they crumbled into a pile of fine gray dust.  He grabbed onto a red drone with his feet, pinning it to the ground as his body turned into a silver battering ram.  He landed two crushing blows to the drone's head, before a powerful punch knocked him away.

A yellow drone grabbed him from behind, holding him tight as four SWAT droids took aim with their weapons.  Just as they opened fire, Drew's body expanded outward into a giant silver donut.  The lasers passed right through the hole in the middle, obliterating the drone.  The surreal silver-green form, looking like a piece of modern art, swooped over their heads in an arch.  A long stringy tendril dropped down, and quickly looped itself around the necks of the police-bots.  Drew had turned a piece of his body into an ultra-strong carbon-filament cable.  Before the police-bots could react, the cable snapped tight – and popped their heads off, like giant pimples.

But then Drew felt six robotic claws close around his body, trying to pull him apart like a giant strand of silver taffy.  He oozed and flowed, escaping from four of them, but the other two yanked hard, and snapped his body through the air like a rope.  Loops of silver-green play-doh plopped down in a pile on the sidewalk, and liquefied into a metallic puddle once again – but the remaining Cluster drones pounced on him, and pumped his body with blast after blast of relentless laser fire.  Drew could feel chunks of himself being vaporized into ash.  He had lost about half of his body mass in the battle so far …

He squirted into the air, wrapping himself around a red drone's face.  The drone clutched madly at him, trying to pull the silver-green blob away – but his comrades weren't going to take chances.  The unlucky red drone jerked about like a marionette, as his Cluster brothers blasted it with their lasers.  Then a shot to the chest catapulted it backwards, into the side of the Channel Four news van.  With a horrific crash, the van flipped it on its side, and the red drone rolled into the middle of the street.

The Cluster forces had been reduced by almost a third – Drew had given them more of a fight than anyone had expected – but that fight was about to end.  The drones and SWAT droids poured into the street, ready to finish off the remains of the shape-shifting android.  The badly damaged red drone managed to sit up with a feeble metallic _creak_, and looked down onto its chest.  It was covered with a large blob of silver-green molasses – an angry silver amoeba, shimmering with wild, rippling patterns of green.

To the drone's horror, the silver slime started to engulf its body.  It clutched and grabbed with renewed desperation, trying to wipe off the expanding layer of metallic goo.  Waving its arms in panic, it unleashed a robotic scream into the air, as its body, arms, and head dissolved into a shiny ball of paste.  The other drones stared on in shock, and for the first time, a hint of fear registered on their faces.  They were all soldiers, and were all ready to give their lives in the service of their queen.  But it was one thing to be shot, or destroyed, or dismantled.  It was another thing entirely to be _eaten alive_.

The blob of silver-green, now fully rejuvenated, once more oozed and stretched back into humanoid form.  A pair of Cluster drones were standing only a few yards away; Drew's right arm shot out like water from a fire hose, and his fingers wrapped around a yellow drone's chest.  With a gurgling _schlorrrrp_, a wave of silver ooze flowed over the next victim's body.  The drone kicked and screamed like a wild animal, but it had no defenses against the ravenous little nanobots.  They broke its shell and machinery down into raw materials, and absorbed its atoms back into Drew's arm.

He gave the remaining drones a wicked smile.  "I guess robots are like potato chips," he chuckled.  "You can't eat _just one_."

Then he jumped high in the air, and morphed his hands and feet into sharp claws – a silver predator pouncing on its hapless prey.  A wave of terror swept over the robots, and they scrambled to avoid the attack of this freakish robo-cannibal.  Drew landed on the backs of two green drones, puncturing their shells with nano-tipped claws, and started devouring them from the inside out.  The attackers were down to half strength; but as afraid as they were of being eaten, they were more afraid of failing in front of Vexus.  They regrouped twenty yards away from the silver android, and prepared for another laser attack.

But Drew had just consumed four Cluster drones, and his body had _grown_.  He flowed into a large silver puddle in the middle of the street, five times larger than before.  It bubbled and shimmered – then surged into the air, sprouting a pair of double-jointed legs.  Then another pair.  Then a third, then a fourth.  His body hung ten feet above the ground, supported by eight nimble, lethal double-jointed pincers; each leg shimmered with ripples of silver-green, ready to attack in any direction.  His head flowed out, and gave the remaining robots a nasty glare.

The giant silver tarantula charged at the terrified robots, with leg-blades swinging like a giant threshing machine.  Perfect nano-blades sliced through the roach-drones as if they were made of cream cheese.  More blades sliced through the air, severing the laser-antennae of the soldier drones.  The four rearward legs grew a pair of massive claws at their ends; each one lunged out and grabbed a SWAT droid around its neck, and the nanobots "melted" off their heads.

A green drone managed to get a shot off at Drew's front leg, severing it at the knee.  Drew simply grew a hand at the end of the stub, grabbed the leg, and used it like a giant dagger to impale a pair of roach-drones.  He circled around the dwindling numbers of Cluster robots, slicing at them with his long, supple legs, twisting his ribbon-like body between the searing shafts of laser fire.  A side leg shoved its spike-tip through another SWAT droid, sending it crumpling to the pavement.  A front leg rammed into the grill of one of the news vans, and with a mighty heave, hauled out the engine block – then started swinging it overhand, like a huge mallet, crushing Cluster drones like soda cans.

But then Drew winced from the brilliance of a blinding light.  A sizzling bolt of energy shot out from somewhere with a deafening roar, and tore through the legs on his left side.  He crashed to the pavement in an undignified heap, and watched his severed legs deteriorate into fizzling mounds of glowing gray ash.  He scrambled to repair the left side of his body, and frantically tried to pull himself off the ground.  _Just when I thought I was actually getting somewhere … where the heck did THAT come from?!?_

"That will be quite enough from you," hissed an irritated voice.

Vexus hovered next to the CNS "news van", which had suddenly sprouted a gigantic particle cannon from its roof.  And that cannon had pivoted to point directly at Drew, who was lying in the middle of the street, in semi-liquid form.  Vexus' shoulders heaved with aggravation.  "Decoy Robot Unit, indeed.  You have proven to be surprisingly …" – she grit her teeth – " … _annoying_ … and as amusing as it might be to take you back to Cluster Prime for study, I think I'll just have you reduced to a cloud of sub-atomic particles.  Drone, you may fire when ready …"

Drew tried to get himself moving, but he needed another two seconds … two seconds that he wasn't going to get.  He watched an angry crimson glow build in the barrel of the giant cannon …  _sigh, at least I gave it a try_ … then a blinding shaft of energy lit up the sky.

But it didn't come from the cannon.  A beam of energy screamed down from directly overhead, glowing a brilliant blue.  It slammed into the roof of the van, ripping it to pieces in a spectacular explosion.  The colossal blast hurled Vexus against the windshield of another news truck, shattering it with the impact of her body.  She rubbed her head and looked upwards …

And groaned in frustration as a blue-and-white robot girl drifted slowly down to Earth, balanced on twin plumes of exhaust from her pigtail-jets.

Jenny was home.

After defeating the Cluster in Sydney, and flying halfway around the world in record time, Jenny was back home.  She descended to hover just a few yards away from Vexus, with a furious scowl on her face.  She retracted her wings and boosters, and stared right through the Cluster queen with a look that could kill.  Her body was still sizzling with scorch marks and wisps of smoke, both from her aerial battle in Australia and her super-fast flight back home; it complimented the anger that flowed from her at the moment.

"I hope your insurance was paid up on your van," she snarled.  "And on your starship, too."

"YES!" shouted Drew, with a look of exhausted relief on his face.  He labored his way to his feet while his body repaired itself, warbling like silver jello.  "Jenny, are _you_ ever a sight for sore eyes!"

Vexus silently floated a few feet into the air, hovering above the smoldering wreckage that used to be her "news van".  The narrow slits of her eyes hinted at the venom that boiled behind her calm, civilized mask.  "Always a pleasure to see you, Jennifer," she said in an icy voice.  "Although I wasn't expecting you for a few more minutes yet.  Don't you realize that it's impolite to show up early?"

Jenny didn't answer.  Instead, she deployed a laser-limb from her right arm, and pointed it directly at Vexus' chest.  "I'll give you just one chance," she said, her voice audibly shaking.  "Tell me where my mother is, NOW!"

Her mind ever-calculating, Vexus smiled with an arrogant sneer.  "My, my … concerned for the little long-haired lab rat, are we?  Well, if I may use the vernacular, it does seem that you 'have the drop on me'.  I suppose I have no choice but to show you where she is."

Drew had finished repairing himself, and was watching the drama unfold as he tried to recover his bearings, and rebuild his energy.  Something about Vexus' attitude seemed wrong, for someone who was about to get her butt kicked.  She was waving her hands in an overdramatic fashion …

"Your sniveling little scientist is over there," she purred, gesturing off to her left.  In Jenny's emotional state, she turned to look, taking her eyes off of Vexus … who slowly raised her right hand, and exposed her palm, which was loaded with a tiny black dart …

_Oh, heck._  As if by instinct, Drew's right arm instantly shimmered into silvery fluid.  He whirled it over his head, and snapped it at the Cluster queen like a whip.

Vexus grinned, took aim at Jenny's blue torso, and … _Snap!  Schwick!_

She gasped in surprise, and Jenny turned back in time to see … Vexus' right hand, sizzling with sparks of electricity, cut through with a perfect slice.  Then with a tiny _pop_, the hand fell off, and clattered down to the sidewalk, with its long, spidery fingers twitching in random spasms.

The Cluster queen glared at the pathetic silver-green android, with searing hatred in her eyes.  "How – _dare_ – you – strike at the leader of the Cluster Empire!  You puny, insignificant ball of sludge!"  She raised her remaining hand in a fist, and her antennae glowed with arcs of violet energy …

But she was interrupted by a blast from Jenny's laser-limb, streaking through the air mere inches from her face.  Quickly recovering her cool, Vexus gracefully swooped backward, dodged a few more of Jenny's laser beams, and spiraled high into the air.  Demonic claws extended from her left hand, and with a powerful swipe, she tore a hole in the very fabric of space itself, creating a dimensional portal.

"Well, Jenny, it looks like my visit is over for today," she said, in her calm, ever-arrogant voice.  "But don't worry; I'll be back, to help you see the error of your ways.  You will be hearing from the Cluster again soon, my dear."

Vexus shifted her gaze towards Drew, and her tone darkened considerably.  "And as for you … you _abhorrent atrocity_ …oh,  I guarantee that _you'll_ be hearing from the Cluster again, _too_."  Then she swooped into the madly dancing kaleidoscope of colors in the dimensional rift – and the portal sealed up with a flash, leaving no trace that it ever existed in the first place.

Jenny simmered with frustration – _she got away again_ – but Vexus would have to wait for another day.  There were graver concerns right now.  She dropped to the ground and ran over to her android friend, oblivious to the destruction surrounding them, and grabbed him by the shoulders.  "Drew!  Oh my gosh, Drew, all you all right?!?"

He glanced down as the last of the silvery ripples flowed down his arms to his fingers, and quickly examined his body.  "Yeah … hey, believe it or not, yeah, I … I think I actually _am_.  But man-oh-man, am I ever glad to see you, Jen.  I am in over my head _big-time_, here.  You've gotta destroy the rest of these whack-job Cluster robots for me!"

Jenny quickly looked around, a bit puzzled.  "_What_ Cluster robots?"

"Whaddaya mean, what Cluster robots?!?  We're surrounded by …"  Then he looked around them, and stared, stunned, with his jaw hanging half-open.  "Holy _schnikey_."

The front yard of the Wakeman house was littered with wheezing husks of demolished Cluster roach-drones.  Scrap metal, broken gears, springs, pistons, pumps and power cells … the Cluster army had been reduced to a robotic junkyard.  Here and there, between hissing short-circuits and thin wisps of smoke, a thin robotic claw waved in the air, or a leg flexed weakly with the sound of failing motors.  Mashed SWAT droids and Cluster drones were scattered in the street, twitching pathetically in a futile attempt to simply stand up.  Half-devoured drone shells lay motionless against a pair of overturned white vans, with their insides dissolving into a fine gray ash, and a look of sheer terror frozen on their faces.

Jenny shook him by the shoulders.  "Drew, my _mom_.  Where's my mom?!?"

He was still in a state of semi-shock.  "Uh … she's still … uh … she's still in the house, I think."

She barely recognized her own house, with the gaudy steel plating deployed, covered with huge black scorch marks.  It looked like it had been in a war zone.  Smoking craters and pools of oil covered the lawn.  Gouges had been cut out of the walls and windows.  Dark gray smoke drifted into the air from some unseen location inside.  Fear took hold of her, and she sprinted for the front door.

And all of the sudden, standing in the middle of the battle's aftermath, Drew was all alone.  An eerie calm settled over the scene, and he casually walked across the yard, looking over the Cluster wreckage as he went.  There were heaps of shredded drone bodies, severed antennae, arms and legs ripped off and piled on top of decapitated heads – some with eyes still moving, watching him nervously.  The Cluster forces had been thoroughly and completely annihilated.

Drew folded his arms, and a small, dopey smile crept onto his face.  "Well, how about that."

* * *

The first thing she saw after ripping the thick steel door off its hinges was Brad and Tuck, grinning like a pair of hyenas.  Tuck ran up and jumped into her arms.  "Boy are we ever glad to see you!  It took you long enough to get here – you missed all the excitement!  There was a gi-normous Cluster robot army, right out on the front yard!  And the police robots were here … and … and Vexus was here too!  And … and there were lasers and … _pchoom!  pchoom!_"  The little fellow was on the verge of hyperventilating.

"I know, Tuck, I know," she laughed.  She grabbed Brad by the hand, squeezing it as tightly as she dared to with her robotic strength.  "Thank goodness you guys are all right.  But Brad, where's my mom?  Drew said she was in here … why isn't she at the hospital?"

"Why would I be at the hospital?" Mrs. Wakeman asked.

She looked more tired and disheveled than usual, with smoke stains and scorch marks covering her yellow lab coat.  The doctor pushed her long white hair out of her face, and braced herself against her still-smoldering work desk.  "Well, don't just stand there, XJ-9.  We need to assess the damage to the house and the lab, and begin repairs to …"

Mrs. Wakeman didn't get a chance to finish her sentence.  A blue-and-white blur slammed into her, lifting her into a crushing robotic hug.  Then Jenny dropped down to her knees, and set her bewildered mother back on her feet, gasping for breath.

"Mom!  Mom, you're alive!  I was so worried … oh no, right, your chest!  Just relax and don't move – I'll call the hospital and let them know you're on the way!"  She spun one of her pigtails into a parabolic dish, and started to make a phone call …

"XJ-9, what in blazes is the matter with you?!?"  The doctor was genuinely baffled.  "I do not need to go to the hospital.  Granted, I must appear somewhat nicked up right now, but I've sustained worse injuries before just by cooking dinner.  Are your sensors malfunctioning?"

"B-But …" Jenny's mind was swimming in confusion, her emotions a frenzied jumble of joy, and relief, and happiness, mixed with the grief and terror of her last ten minutes.  "M-Mom, I saw you – on the TV.  I saw you get _shot_ by a Cluster drone."

"Shot?!?  On the television, you say?  Oh my, then a news camera must have … oh, no, what you must have seen …"  The doctor gasped, suddenly realizing the reason for the grief in XJ-9's eyes.

"I … I thought you were … _dead_."  Jenny's voice choked up; she could finally say it now, knowing that her mom was actually safe.  She collapsed into her mother's arms, squeezing her in a firm, yet gentle embrace, and her shoulders started to shake.  "I th-thought I had lost you."

Mrs. Wakeman actually seemed a bit stunned, and awkwardly wrestled her arms free to pat her creation on the shoulders, trying to calm her down.  Heightened emotional states like this were tough on XJ-9's electronics, and placed heavy loads on her cooling loops.  "There, there, XJ-9 … everything's fine now.  You've saved the day again, just like I knew you would."

"Those things I said to you this morning … such horrible things … Mom, I'm so sorry …"

The doctor winced at the memory.  "Well … things did get a bit heated, but that's all …"  She didn't finish the thought.  Mrs. Wakeman was distracted by an odd warmth against her cheeks.  She touched a finger to her face, and felt a moist fluid – then she realized it was coming from XJ-9's tear reservoirs.  The girl did tend to get over-emotional, but the doctor sensed something different in her this time.  She'd just been through a horrific, traumatic experience.  The doctor's cold, clinical exterior started to melt away, as her robotic creation – no, her _daughter_ – buried her head into her shoulder.  Then Jenny turned her face ever so slightly, kissed the doctor on the cheek, and whispered –

"_I love you, Mommy_."

Mrs. Wakeman stared blankly into space, amazed at the words she'd just heard.  Then the room got blurry, and she realized that hot, salty tears were pooling up in her own eyes as well.  She reached up to remove her glasses, and wiped her face against her sleeve.  Nora Wakeman cradled her daughter's head in her hands, pressed her thin lips against her metal cheek, and whispered back –

"Oh, I love you too, Jenny."

* * *

CONCLUDED in Chapter Ten

* * *


	10. The Burden of Responsibility

* * *

One Good Reason

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Ten – The Burden of Responsibility

* * *

Queen Vexus eased back and settled into the pillows on her favorite couch - the long one, made from luxurious platinum, covered with a purple metallic silk.  A small entourage of robot servants was fawning over her, tending to her every need.  A young robot girl bowed reverently, holding a gold-trimmed chalice filled with fine imported lubricant; a pair of maintenance droids worked quickly and silently, polishing and buffing her right forearm.  Vexus enjoyed one more sip of lubricant, then waved her hand to the imposing insectoid warriors who composed her Royal Guard.  They responded with a quick bow, then pulled open the giant stainless steel doors that led in from the grand hallway.

A short, squat, and very tense-looking robot wheeled into the receiving room, escorted by four hulking robot guards.  He was only four feet tall, and most of that was head – covered with blinking lights and antenna-spikes, pulsing chaotically with multicolored flashes.  He rubbed his six hands together fretfully, and awkwardly leaned forward, reluctant to look directly at the queen with any of his six eyes.  "Oh Great and Mighty Queen Vexus … you sent for me?"

"Oh, come in, come in, my loyal subject," purred Vexus, as she gently bounced one long, svelte leg on top of the other.  "We are so _very_ grateful that you could make it on such short notice."

The short visitor tried to compose himself.  "Um … well, it's not every day that I get an invitation to the palace.  In fact, I haven't been here since … well …"

"Since your work on the nano-probe project a few months ago.  In fact, I believe you were the lead scientist on that project, weren't you, mister … oh, how _do_ you pronounce that name of yours again?"

"Ah … heh-heh, it's an old family name, it can only be spoken in quantum frequencies."  He nervously tried to conjure up a smile.  "Everybody just calls me Stanley."

"Stanley, then."  Vexus returned a pleasant, cordial smile of her own.  "Stanley, how much do you recall about that little project?"

That dredged up some unpleasant memories.  "W-well, Your Majesty, we used a radical new design, giving the nanobots the ability to adapt and reproduce.  All my idea, that was.  We would infect the target robot with nanobots, and the little dickens would spread, multiply, take control, yada yada.  Then _we_ would control the nanobots, and the nanobots would control the _robot_."

"But it didn't quite work out, did it?  You went to Earth and guaranteed me that XJ-9 would be assimilated into the Cluster in a matter of days.  And you failed _miserably_."  She let Stanley squirm in discomfort for a few seconds.  "What, pray tell, became of the nanobots?"

"We … we programmed the nanobots with safety codes, to guarantee that we would always have full control of them," he answered.  "After we infected the wrong target, and the mission … er … _ended disappointingly_, the safeties on the nanobots activated, and the little devils self-destructed.  There was the flashing, and the poofing, and then nothing left but piles and piles of gray dust."

"Gray dust," she said, in an icy voice.  Then she snapped her fingers, and a large video screen started to descend from the ceiling.  "You said that you infected the wrong target?"

Now Stanley was really starting to fidget.  "Umm … yes, we accidentally injected the nano-probes into a … well, we thought it was a primitive android, but now we're pretty sure it was a _human_.  But, it's all a moot point now, right?  Because it was destroyed when …"

The video screen came to life with the image of a six-foot, silver-green android.  Its shiny, malleable body was leaping and twisting through a group of roach-drones – making them look clumsy and inept as it seamlessly turned from a bubbling silver puddle of fluid into the form of a teenage boy.  It grew long blades from its arms and sliced the drones in half – and whenever the drones landed a blow on the android, its body quickly healed itself.

Stanley's six eyes nearly fell out of their sockets.  "Those … those are my nanobots!  But that's impossible!  We lost the signal, the nanobots were self-destructing … that android shouldn't even exist!"

He turned back to Vexus, and nearly keeled over in terror.  Her genial demeanor had vanished; now she glared at him with a look that set his metal skin on fire.  "Oh, it definitely exists," she growled.  "And not only do you _not_ control it, but your little nanobot-android actually _fought_ against me today.  I find it somewhat troubling that one of your creations would turn on me."  She paused to let the implications of _that_ sink in.  "It even seems to have a mind of its own now – a _human_ mind.  And impossible though it may seem, it _rejected_ one of my assimilation darts.  You can imagine how that _concerns_ me, Stanley.  And if it concerns me, then it should definitely concern you – don't you agree?"

The short robot was shaking so hard, his antennae were knocking together.  "O-o-o, yes, Your Majesty!  Absolutely!  It concerns me a great deal!"

"I thought it might," she said through clenched teeth.  She glanced down at her new right hand, as the maintenance servants put the finishing touches on her circuitry repairs.  Then she glared back at Stanley, her eyes narrowing into a pair of angry slits.  "That's why I knew you'd be happy to hear you've been put back in charge of the nanobot project, effective immediately.  I am giving you one simple order … find out what went wrong with your nanobots, and find a way to regain control over them.  I will _not_ tolerate the existence of a robot that can resist assimilation into the Cluster."

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air for a moment; then she continued.  "You see, as far as I am concerned, there are only two types of robots in the universe.  Those I will control … and those I will _destroy_.  Am I understood?"

"P-p-perfectly understood, Your Majesty!  I'll … I'll just get back to my old research lab and …"

"Oh no, no … I have something else in mind for you," she grinned.  "This is all very important to the Cluster Empire, and I think it's best that you work in a quiet, private environment, free from interruptions, where you'll be able to concentrate on your research."

"Oh, Your Majesty – your generosity and forgiveness are truly infinite!"

"Why, thank you," smiled Vexus.  "Guards … take him to the royal dungeon."

* * *

Drew started over at the top of the chapter, and tried once again to read all the way through this morning's Geometry lesson.  And just like the last five times, his mind wandered off halfway through the dry explanation of conic sections.  He simply couldn't stay focused on schoolwork right now.  The cafeteria was its usual raucous self, with the clattering of trays and pots, and students excitedly gathering in their cliques to make plans and share gossip.  But the lunch hour background noise wasn't the cause of his distraction; in fact, he was barely aware of anything around him at the moment.  He slouched over his textbook, his eyes staring at a spot on the far wall of the room.  A million thoughts whirled through his mind like a cyclone, unwilling to settle down and allow themselves to be sorted out.

"Hey … Drew, anybody else sitting at this table?

_Okay_, he thought, _let's try this one more time.  When the eccentricity of the conic is equal to one, the length of the major axis increases to infinity, and the shape turns from an ellipse into a parabola …_

He almost jumped out of his seat when the cafeteria tray slammed down in front of him.  Brad enjoyed a laugh as he plopped down across from Drew.  "Wakey wakey there, guy!  Space Command to Drew, come in – do you read, over?"

"Stop it, Brad, you're terrible!" laughed Jenny, following close behind.  With a soft _whirr_ of her motors, she set down her motor oil and sat next to Brad.  The three of them had the table to themselves.

"Sorry, guys," said Drew, "I didn't even hear you walk up.  I guess my mind's just on something else."

"_Pfft_, I can imagine," grinned Brad.  Then his arms started weaving through the air in swooping, snaking patterns.  "Still thinking about that wicked cool awesome battle with those Cluster goons, right?!?  Jenny, I'm telling you, you should have seen him.  He was surrounded by these giant metal roaches, but all these freaky swords and spikes started flinging out of his body, and he was all like _schlorp! blurp! glurp!_  Bouncing and squirting all over the place!  He sliced, he diced, he totally kicked butt!"

"Geez, I wouldn't say I 'kicked butt'."  Drew looked a bit uncomfortable.  "I darn near got myself killed.  My head got blown off.  Twice."

"It grew _back_," smiled Brad.

"Yeah, well … ah … I didn't … er, um, that is …"

Jenny was having a little fun watching Drew squirm, while Brad continued excitedly.  "Drew, you saved my life this morning.  Tuck's too.  And Mrs. Wakeman's!  You're a _hero_.  And I, for one, would like to show you a little gratitude.  Let me buy you lunch."

"Look, you don't need to do anything, Brad," he said, rolling his eyes.

"I'll go back in the kitchen and see if I can find you a nice iron frying pan.  You like iron, right?"

"Brad, calm down.  I'm not hungry.  I had robot for breakfast, remember?"

"Oh yeah," he grinned.  "Jenny, it was so freaky cool.  He turned into this big shiny blob and started absorbing Cluster robots like in 'The Blob That Ate Cleveland'.  They were dissolving into this big puddle of silver goop and screaming and waving their arms …"

"Ugh, what a way to go!"  Jenny laughed, recoiling in mock fear.  "You're _sure_ you're not hungry, right?"

"_Arrrrghhh!_  Guys!"  Drew buried his face into his hands.

Suddenly Brad hopped out of his seat, pointing to another noisy group of students three tables over.  "Check it out, somebody brought in a little portable TV.  I think they've got it turned to the news!  It's probably a video of you, Drew … there were only, like, a dozen television cameras on the front yard this morning.  Jen, come on, you've gotta see this."

"Go ahead, Brad.  I'll see it later tonight."  And with that, Brad bolted from the table, joining a group of twenty or so students who were leaning over each other's shoulders, watching a small, flat screen about the size of a textbook.  Drew actually seemed to be a bit relieved after he left.

The two robots sat silently for a few moments; Drew tried to re-concentrate on geometry, and Jenny enjoyed her mid-day drink of oil.  She'd already thanked him for saving her mother, after the emotion of the reunion at the house had died down.  But with all the policemen and firemen and media people that had shown up after that, they hadn't even gotten a chance to talk.  They'd all missed their first period Geometry class; so it was the first time she'd seen him since this morning.  And she could tell from the look on his face that something heavy was weighing on his mind.

"Brad will probably go on like that for the rest of the day," she smiled.  "I speak from experience."

Drew chuckled, then closed his textbook with a heavy sigh.  "Well, there's no sense in me trying to get through this chapter right now.  My head is a million miles away.  Besides, I'll have plenty of time to read it after school.  Snitzenburg gave me detention for missing Geometry."

"That stinks," she frowned.  "I was going to get detention too, but Vice Principal Raszinski actually came to my rescue.  Look at what got couriered to his office this morning!"  Jenny rummaged briefly in her backpack, and pulled out a one-page note.  It was printed on heavy stock, with an impressive-looking letterhead that read "Office of the Prime Minister, Sydney, Australia."

He carefully held the note by the edges and read it aloud.  "'Please excuse Miss XJ-9 from first period this morning, as she was busy saving Australia from an alien robot invasion.'  Hey, that's pretty sharp!  Not too many kids get written excuses from world leaders."

"It was very nice of him.  He's probably a really busy man," she grinned.  "So is that what's got you feeling so upset?  That you got stuck with detention?"

"Huh?  What makes you think I'm upset?"

Jenny cocked her head as if to say, _Come on_.  "Well, if _Brad_ had defeated forty Cluster robots in combat, he'd probably be dancing on the tables by now.  But you're just sitting over here all by yourself, staring off into space.  So what's wrong?"

"I didn't realize I was that easy to read."  A few seconds of silence elapsed, until Drew realized that Jenny was going to wait until she got an answer.  "It's not that there's anything wrong, it's just …"

He looked her in the eyes, and went on.  "This morning, I grew a pair of ten-foot swords out of my arms.  I grew spikes out of my back, I used a pair of Cluster drones like hand puppets.  I ripped the engine block out of a truck, and I engaged in combat against the all-powerful leader of an evil robot empire.  But … in my _mind_, I'm still just a high school student that's trying to keep a C average."

He leaned closer.  "Jenny, how in the world do you _do_ this?  I mean, you're a high schooler just like me, but you can bench-press a train engine, or shoot up an alien starship, or stop a tidal wave, or fly around the world in five minutes.  Doesn't any of that ever just floor you?  I mean, you always seem so _bored_ by this saving-the-world stuff."

She wasn't sure what to say.  "Well … I _guess_ I'm kind of used to it by now.  After all, it's what I'm programmed for.  I've had pretty amazing powers ever since my mom first assembled me."

"I wish I was as calm and sure about all of this as you are," he said.  "I don't know why this whole android business had to happen to me – sometimes I just wish that I was still a boring normal teenager.  I know, I know … I sound like a whiny baby pounding on his highchair."

"No … no, you don't."  Now Jenny took a deep sigh, and leaned forward herself.  "Drew … I've got to tell you the truth.  Sometimes I do get freaked out by all of my robot powers – and all of the _responsibilities_ that come with them.  I just wish I could turn off all the rockets and lasers and spend a day vegging at the mall … _without_ worrying that an alarm is going to go off at any second."  She closed her eyes, and lowered her head.  "That's sort of what Mom and I … um … _talked_ about this morning."

"You mean the big fight?"  He chuckled at the surprise on her face.  "Brad and I could kind of tell that you and the doc had a big fight this morning.  I figured it probably had something to do with you being so busy lately.  That, and those protester jerks in front of your house this morning."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about them," she smirked.  "Every day I fly around the world to somewhere, and get shot at, or beaten up, or get a truck thrown at me.  And there are always lots of people like those protestors, calling me names and saying horrible things to me."

Drew saw the pain on her face.  "Jen, that's just … so wrong.  It's not fair."

"No, it's probably not," she said, her face warming into a big smile.  "In fact, I seem to remember saying that very same thing this morning.  But you know what?  Even with all of the aggravation … it still feels really great to actually save somebody.  To be the robot girl who saves the day.  To know that you made a difference, that you made the world a little bit safer.  Even just to hear somebody say 'thank you'."

She placed a reassuring metal hand on his silvery shoulder.  "How did you feel this morning, after Vexus ran off and you realized that you'd defeated her drones?"

"Sick to my stomach," he chuckled.  Then he grew a little more serious.  "Then once I realized that I was still alive, I felt … I felt pretty amazing.  I think it was the proudest moment of my life.  And then I got a little scared.  Because I realized something else, too."

He looked very uncomfortable, and a look of shame came over his face.  "Jenny, I came really close to chickening out and giving up – to thinking I had no business fighting, that it wasn't my responsibility.  And once the fight was over, and I had actually saved your mom, I couldn't help but think – how bad would it feel, to know that you could have saved someone, but had chosen to do nothing at all?"

He took a deep breath.  "That's why I need to ask you a favor.  Man, this is going to sound so stupid."

"Oh, come on!" she laughed.  "Go ahead, Drew, you can ask me anything."

"I want you to teach me how to _fight_.  Jenny, I want to _help_.  I mean, I'm not you, and I could never save people like you can.  I don't have the strength of a million and seventy men.  I can't even fly.  If aliens attacked Washington or something, what would I do – buy a bus ticket?  But there's something about these nanobots that seems to be important.  This sounds crazy, but I think they could help fight against the Cluster.  That Vexus witch is sure spooked by them.  And I don't think she spooks easy."

He rolled his eyes.  "And I'm on her _list_ now.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised – my body practically has "Made in Cluster" stamped on it.  I should've figured that they would find out about me eventually.  They'll keep coming after me, just like they keep coming after you.  Right?"

"Right," Jenny answered simply.  Vexus was a constant fear that she kept tucked away in her electronic mind, to deal with all by herself.  But now Drew had the same problem.  And he'd decided that they were in this together.  "Drew, I don't think that sounds stupid at all.  I think it sounds fantastic!  I've always wished that I had someone to help out now and then.  Of course I'll teach you.  But this is pretty serious stuff.  Are you sure you want to do this?"

"No," he chortled.  "I can think of a million reasons not to do this.  But ignoring the Cluster isn't going to make them go away.  Jen, I can't even _think_ about fighting to save the whole planet like you do.  It's just too much – it scares the _heck_ out of me.  But then I think about my family, and my friends.  Keeping _them_ safe is a good reason to do this.  And I figure … maybe one good reason is reason enough."

They shook hands, and exchanged silent, knowing smiles.  The only two robotic students in school had just added a new layer of understanding and meaning to their friendship.

"You still must be a little upset though," she said.  "You actually battle and defeat the Cluster, and all you have to show for it is after-school detention."

"Now that you mention it," he laughed, "that does pretty much suck …"

"_Ewghh_, watch out, Jenny!" shouted a female voice.  "That _thing_ eats tin cans like you for breakfast.  _Literally_.  We just watched the whole freaky monster movie routine on the news."

It was only a matter of time.  Neither Drew nor Jenny could go for long in a cafeteria full of students without receiving some kind of insult, and this time it was coming from three beautiful girls on the school volleyball team.  They had just watched the news video with the group of kids around the portable TV, and were finishing off their water bottles before heading off to practice.  "Want me to save my empty for you, trash eater?" laughed the short brunette.  "Doctors say that a growing slime mold needs its daily recommended dose of plastic."  She waved her bottle in Drew's face.

Drew just leaned back in his chair with a tired groan.  "No thank you, Linda.  But thanks for caring."

Jenny shot a nasty glance at the girls.  "Why don't you just knock it off!  We weren't bothering you!"

"Just _looking_ at you is bothering me, canhead."  The brunette gave both robots a disgusted sneer.  "Man, I hope the school has reached its metal freak quota for the semester.  Come on girls, let's get out of here."  The popular athletes turned to head off for the gym …

But the tall redhead stayed behind.  "Um … you guys go on and get warmed up.  I'll catch up in a minute … I've got to do something first."

She waited until the doors had swung closed, and her friends were out of sight.  She nervously glanced around her, making sure that nobody she knew was watching her.  Then, with a quick motion, she slipped into the seat next to Drew, much to his surprise.

"Look, I still think you're a disgusting weirdo," she blurted rapidly.  But her tone softened, and she seemed to struggle with her voice.  "My dad is a TV cameraman for Channel Four news – he was one of the prisoners that you rescued this morning.  He called to tell me he was okay, and he told me how you saved them all.  And that's … that's pretty cool.  So thank you.  Thanks for saving my dad's life."

Then she did the last thing in the world Drew would have expected – she leaned over and wrapped her arms around his silver shoulders, giving him a grateful, sincere hug – and planted her soft, pink lips on his metallic cheek with a quick kiss.  Then just as quickly, she rocketed towards the exit, heading off to practice – but not before quickly looking back, and flashing him a smile.

Drew didn't twitch so much as a finger.  He sat ramrod-straight, with eyes the size of dinner plates, and a big dumb grin on his face.  He finally snapped from his trance when Jenny started rocking back and forth in her seat, giggling mercilessly.

"Wha-what?  What is it?" he babbled.

"Your face," she squealed, wiping tears from her eyes.  "Your whole face is bright green!  Oh … _gasp_ … I … _gasp_ … guess I've never seen you blush before."  Then she broke out into huge belly laughs.

Drew blushed even more furiously, and couldn't help but laugh along.  "You know, Jenny, you were right … it is kind of neat when somebody says thank you."

* * *

THE END

* * *


End file.
